Captain Phillips True Story

What made "Captain Phillips so great? We to start it off, it was a true story. Bill Ray, the screenwriter, stated "Inventing characters is a lot of fun but I don't think I'm capable of creating a fictional character that could possibly be as dimensional, idiosyncratic or fully realized as the actual people I read about in the newspaper every day — which is another way of saying that when you're telling a true story, life itself has done most of the work for you. That makes things easier." He does have a point.  Most fictional characters in story are always fictional. No matter how much we fall in love with a character, they are just missing that characteristic a real person has.  According to Bill Ray, Captain Phillips was the one who truly wrote the story, Ray just wrote it down. For those who haven't seen "Captain Phillips", it is about two opposite captains who's decisions not only affect them but there crew member. For more info on the screenplay of "Captain Phillips" click the link. The truth made 'Captain Phillips' screenplay an easy sail 

No Oscar for Hanks?

Tom Hanks has one multiple awards through out his acting career, but lately he has not been nominated of any academy awards. Are the academy voter not interested in Hanks lately or has he  lost his touch? Between 1989 and 2001 Hanks has been receiving multiple awards, staring with "Big" in 1989. He even won back-to-back Oscars in 1994 for  "Philadelphia" and in 1995 for "Forrest Gump". His Oscar era ended with "Castaway" in 2001. Post-Castaway, Hanks has not been nominated for an academy award. Two films that Hanks did, "Cloud Atlas" and "Extremely loud and Incredibly Close" have received mix reviews but Hanks recent films, "Captain Phillips" is one of Hanks best work so far.   Sadly Hanks bad luck streak continues, but who knows maybe next year he'll take the cake. For more info, click on the link below.
Oscar nominations 2014: Is the academy over Tom Hanks?

Its finally over "The Necklace"

Finally after about 5 weeks "The Necklace" is some what complete. It was due on Tuesday, having still 2 minutes left unedited I rushed and came after school to finish the job. I wished we would had more time to get in more shots but overall it turned out okay. I had learned a lot from this project. The one most important things i learned from this was to be organized as much as possible and work as much as possible without wasting one second.Also teamwork is key, if one person slacks off than the whole group is being slowed down. Seeing how difficult this project was I'm wondering what will be our next one, if it will be equally as challenging or even harder.

Editing the necklace

My group and I have finished filming our footage. Currently we are editing the film and we are almost done putting the story line together. We need the last scene and all the sounds in the film since we are only allowed to use folly and ADR. It is sometimes difficult to put in folly and ADR because you have to match it up as close as possible to the action. Right now me and the director are the only ones editing, while the other record the rest of the folly and ADR. Whole editing we have realized some mistakes that we have not seen while filming. We plan to re-shot as soon as possible.

This is the same editing software we use but this is not our film

"The necklace" Filming week 2

It has been 3 weeks since my group and i have been working on "The Necklace" by Ricki Herrera. So far we filmed about 70% of the film but lots of work is still needed. Due to our planning before hand we are finishing filming fast but we did have a few problems. For example on our first day of filming there were multiply clouds making the scene too dark. Also our actors kept looking straight at the camera which frustrated me while editing but we re shot and it is much better than before. We also goofed around a bit which wasted some time but we are still making good progress. My main concern is Foley and ADR. We barely have any Foley and zero ADR. Our main focus now is to finish filming ASAP and then concentrate all our effort on sound. Editing is not a major problem but it will take time to finish. I believe we will finish on time but we might have to rush a bit to get it done and work much more on sound.

A Foley artists at work 

Pre-production: Week 1

"The Necklace" by Ricki Herrera is in progress. So far the script has been written and rewritten. We had created a schedule for the film but it had to change due to the fact that the scripted need more work and a storyboard and shot list was still needed.  The Director and I are starting to plan the shot list and story board. We- the director Ricki and I- decided that the more we plan out before filming the faster we will finish with more time to edit. So far I believe that 3 or 4 more days before we can actually start to film. Most of out scenes are outside and during the afternoon. With the progress we are making I believe this will be a good film.

This is not our actual script but a cool picture that resembles ours right now

Sundance Film Festival

According to Deadline Hollywood the "Sundance Film Festival would be move one week due to it's overlapping of Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. The Sundance Film Festival is hold annually in   n Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort in Utah. It is the largest independent Film Festival in the US. It was held from January 17 to January 27 but starting 2015 it would start January 22. Now as a teen and future filmmaker the change won't affect me as much just making me reschedule a few thing, but as a consumer it changes everything. Since it was held the same time as a long weekend tourist don't spend as much money and time in Utah but due to the change us consumers are given more days to spend our money and who doesn't like spending money?  For more info please visit  http://www.deadline.com/2013/09/sundance-film-festival-to-shift-dates-in-2015-to-avoid-mlk-holiday-weekend/