Progress!

So I wanted to have a rough sequence put together of the Smoky Mountains footage today, but of course, I ran into a few problems! After digitizing four new tapes, currently on the sixth, I realized I have a shit load of footage. A shit load of footage of the same shit! Well, there are definitely a lot of interesting shots that stand out from the others, it's just going to take a lot longer to pick through and find them. After roughly 550 new clips logged, I have taken about 80 and put them into my timeline. The tricky thing might be to transition from the city to the Mountains, and of course not including too much footage, so it doesn't get boring. I am finishing the last tape that needs to be digitized today, and continuing to sift through the clips. WEND of next week I will have a first rough cut done, and will begin the process of recording the narration, which I still have not decided if it will help or harm the film! Maybe I should score it instead, not sure. If I do put the narration down, it will most likely run through the city shots and then once he leaves and goes to the Mountains it will be silent. Either way, 4 weeks left, gotta stay on it!

The Process Continues

I have my NIGHT shots completed, for the most part! TIME to GO to THE SMOKIES!

INDIE MEMPHIS

The Wild and Wonderful Whites of Virginia, co-produced by Johnny Knoxville was the best documentary I have seen this year! The film is based around the lives of 25 family outlaws, the 'WHITES' , from a mother giving birth and snorting a line of OC directly thereafter, to the tap dancing, weed smoking, coke blowing, whiskey drinking rhythms of Hank Williams III. (Family friend) The Whites will leave you breathless.

A HELL OF A RIDE!

Rough Cut_Daylight

1st CUT

So I roughed in my first visual cut for the audience. I have weaved through a whole lot of footage, in order to find the most visually compelling scenes. I still need to shoot at night and in the smokey mtns. later. My class thinks the movie should be a dog's tale, or some crazy shit. People feel it looks like a animals perspective, which I get considering there is no set up or narration of this being a human walking yet. I think it will become clearer once that is finished. I keep changing the narration, so it might take a hot minute to actually have sound recorded. I don't want to even mess with it until the last couple of weeks of the semester.

Technical Approach

I want to shoot this film, entirely from the main character's perspective. I don't feel it is important to ever show the character's face or full figure. To achieve this from the ground view, in the past I tried to rig the camera to a T Square, holding it by my feet as I walked. It was not as sturdy as I had hoped and need to find a better approach to shoot the scenes that are not from an eye perspective.

Crew and Cast

Myself,

Genishia Chuck (lighting)

Clay Qualls (Asst Director, Bum)

Locations: Downtown Memphis, Mid-town Memphis

Blocked out Scenes:

MORNING__

Scene 1: (Shot of window, from interior of mans house)

Narration: I wake to the miserable sounds in the distance.

No peace, not here at least.

Scene 2: (Close-up shot of car passing by)

Narration: Only steel thunder tumbling on cement.

Scene 3: (Upper-body shots of people walking through the streets of downtown Memphis)

Narration: These odd creatures that wake, only to continue a life of pain.

Scene 4: (Lower shot of peoples feet walking on concrete)

Narration: No true breath lays entwined with such rubble, such filth.

Scene 5: (City shot, buildings, etc.)

Narration: A fake existence. One not worth partaking in.

Scene 6: (Shot of man’s hand (inside house) turning a doorknob.

Narration: I place my hand on the cold doorknob and slowly turn it to

the right.

Scene 7: (Trash-day shot of garbage trucks)

Narration: An awful stench fills the air.

The smell, of dump trucks on their way to the land fill.

Scene 8: (Cityscape shot, downtown Memphis, people walking around)

Narration: The land that used to flourish, stretching for days.

A day that came where humans forgot about the earth.

Scene 9: (Silhouetted man standing in front of his door looking out onto the street)

Narration: But I am not of their kind. I am alone.

We are all alone and not everyone can see it.

Scene 10: (Door opening – camera view from man’s perspective)

Narration: I step out onto the porch and into the concrete jungle for the last time!

DAY__

Scene 11: (Walking through downtown Memphis – still man’s perspective)

Narration: I walk this city of bricks for miles.

What has this world evolved into?

Scene 12: (camera focuses on buildings)

Narration: I wonder what it looked liked before the buildings,

Scene 13: (camera focuses on cars driving by)

Narration: before the cars,

Scene 14: (camera focuses on trash in the street)

Narration: before the trash covering the streets, before our empire of filth.

Scene 15: (man still walking through downtown Memphis, camera view still from his perspective)

Narration: Does anyone else see through their eyes besides me,

or will this awful place forever remain?

Will the world wake up one day from this terrible nightmare and realize

what we have done? We are reduced to nothing. Just a reminder of why I must leave.

NIGHT____

Scene 16: (Man walks from a crowded, brightly-lit street into a dark alley way – remainder of shot is him walking through the alley)

Narration: This city has a darker side. One I have come to know,

one I have come to hate. Painful lights from above me cover the stars.

Scene 17: (Clay, (bum) puking in alley)

Narration: A homeless man pukes in the alley way,

(Remainder of shot is of man walking through the alley)

Narration: and the gunshots in the distance only remind me of the 4th of July. The day our country gained it's independence from the King.

I wish the King had won. Seems fare trade considering the land was stolen from the Native Americans in the first place.

Though, the wicked ways of this country disgust me,

I continue to walk down this road.

Departure

______Tomorrow I will leave this place behind.

INNATE SIMPLICITY____

Concept:

I decided to take a walk through the city to write and ended up creating this script.
It is a story of a man that hates the world he lives in. The concrete, cars, pollution, etc.
Of course this character being based off myself and my opinions of our world today.
Walking through Memphis, while writing helped me work this concept through dramatically, but
only in regards to how I feel about the city. I will venture to the Smokey mountains over fall
break to film myself leaving the city, and returning to the shelter I built two years ago. I will film
my surroundings, encounters and interactions with nature, as well as keeping a daily journal of
these events. To actually be there and feel what it's like to live under the stars
for a week, with nothing but my film equipment will help me create an honest narration to finish
the 2nd half of the film.

MORNING__

I wake to the miserable sounds in the distance.

No peace, not here at least,

only steel thunder tumbling on cement.

These odd creatures that wake only to continue a life of pain.

No true breath lays entwined with such rubble,

such filth.

A fake existence,

one not worth partaking in.

I place my hand on the cold doorknob and slowly turn it to the right.

An awful stench fills the air.

The smell of dump trucks on their way to the land fill.

The land that used to flourish, stretching for days.

A day that came where humans forgot about the earth,

but I am not of their kind.

I am alone.

We are all alone and not everyone can see it.

I step out onto the porch and into the concrete jungle for the last time!

DAY__

I walk this city of bricks for miles.

What has this world evolved into?

I wonder what it looked liked before the buildings,

before the cars,

before the trash covering the streets,

before our empire of filth.

Does anyone else see through their eyes besides me,

or will this awful place forever remain?

Will the world wake up one day from this terrible nightmare and realize

what we have done?

We are reduced to nothing.

Just a reminder of why I must leave.

NIGHT____

This city has a darker side.

One I have come to know,

one I have come to hate.

Painful lights from above me cover the stars.

A homeless man pukes in the alley way,

and the gunshots in the distance only remind me of the 4th of July.

The day our country gained it's independence from the King.

I wish the King had won.

Seems fare trade considering the land was stolen from the Native

Americans in the first place.

Though, the wicked ways of this country disgust me,

I continue to walk down this road.

Departure

______Tomorrow I will leave this place behind.



Note to World:


It's all over now.

There is no returning this time.

My family, friends, technology: all forgotten.

I have returned to the jungle.

I am touched by the hands of my ancestors and reminded

that we humans were put here for a much greater purpose

than destroying the earth and savaging the land.

All I need are my hands and feet,

no concrete street.

A home of sticks and stones, and most of all peace.

A place to breath,

a place to eat

and a world where I’m actually free.

I have found my place of rest,

A breath beneath my chest,

salvation at it’s best.

I have conquered death a million times from stress.

I scream at the God’s: leave me blessed!

To the people I love, I’ll be ok.

Alone on this mountaintop,

there’s no pain to decay.

I’ve started my new life; actually it’s just begun.

Never again the feeling of wanting to run.

Believe in me and believe in this earth,

for I have reconnected with a most perfect worth.

Maybe a day will come filled with recognition of what wrong we’ve done.

Until this day I will remain in the valley of one.

Schedule:

Week4: Film city/ technically challenge the aesthetics of filming at night with very little light.

Week5: Film city/ Record 1st part of narration.

Week6: Digitize 1st part of film and narration.

Week7: Edit 1st part of film and narration.

Week8: Continue to edit 1st part of film and narration.

Week9: Fall Break: Smokey Mountains/Film/Sleep under the stars completely alone/keep daily journal of encounters.

Week10: Digitize Smtn footage and prepare final 2nd part of narration.

Week11: Record narration.

Week12: Edit Smtn footage and narration.

Week13: Continue to edit Smtn footage and narration.

Week14: Final Revisions

Week15: Final Revisions

Week16: Last week of school!

YOUTUBE: IDEA 1

Youtube has become the #1 website in the world to upload and share video.
I heard through the grapevine one day that you could make money from your
youtube videos, a lot of money, well only if your video got a lot of views
of course! So, I did some research.

Before the launch of YouTube in 2005,
there were few simple methods available for ordinary computer
users who wanted to post videos online.
With its easy to use interface,
YouTube made it possible for anyone with an Internet connection
to post a video that millions of people could watch within a few minutes.
The wide range of topics covered by YouTube has turned video sharing into
one of the most important parts of Internet culture.

As a member of the Youtube partners program, they typically pay 1/3 cents to 1 cent
per view. As you get more consistant viewers, they pay a higher percentage.
Some of these posters can make a very significant income off their videos.

For example, a video with 1,000,000 views x .0033 = $3300. This is the minimum you
will make if you're a yourtube parter.


As digital media majors, we should find a way to penetrate the youtube playground.

So what makes a youtube video succesful?

Talent?

Humor?

Truth?

Instructional?

Bold?

Sexy?

What made, "Chocolate Rain" so succesful that it has generated 41,019,303 views to date?

"It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time," with 1,554,951 views.

"Keeping your refrigerator stocked will get you many women," with 2,689,224 views.

"Evolution of Dance," with 125,201,330 views.

"Charlie bit my finger - again," with 117,925,826 views.

"Crazy Baby Movies," with 3,169,420 views.

I shall devise a plan:

How many separate films will it take to achieve this so called, "YouTube success!"

What content will the world enjoy, how many babys must I find to make a buck? Let the journey begin!

Terra Firma: Idea 2

I created a short film a couple of semesters ago, that to me was more
narratively compelling than visually. The short told a story of man
who is tired of, " the concrete jungle," he is surrounded in. He decides to
leave everyone he knows behind to live as a free man in the forest.
I want to further expand the original narration into a more detailed story
of why he made such a decision. Why he would leave his family, his job,
everone he knew to live alone in the forest? What drives someone to no
longer possess a need for material items, or city life? I feel that the viewer
needs this information, and could lead to a much stronger piece, as well as
more visual representation of the new world he encounters. A year ago, I built
a shelter in the middle of the Smokey Mountains. I will return to use the
shelter as the setting for the character's (Me) new found world, while of course
filming his city life in Memphis.

Original Narration:

It is all over now.
I have left this world.
There is no returning this time.
My family, friends, technology: all forgotten.
I am returning to the jungle.
As the Lysergic acid diethylamide enters my system,
I am touched by the hands of my ancestors and reminded
that we humans were put here for a much greater purpose
than destroying the earth and savaging the land.
All I need are my hands and feet, no concrete street.
A home of sticks and stones, and most of all peace.
A place to breath,
a place to eat
and a world where I’m actually free.
I am returning to an earth that believes.
I have found my place of rest,
A breath beneath my chest,
salvation at it’s best.
I have conquered death a million times from stress.
I scream at the God’s: leave me blessed.
To the people I love, I’ll be ok.
Alone on this mountaintop, there’s no pain to decay.
I’ve started my new life; actually it’s just begun.
Never again the feeling of wanting to run.
Believe in me and believe in this earth,
for I have reconnected with a most perfect worth.
Maybe a day will come filled with recognition of what wrong we’ve done.
Until this day I will remain in the valley of one.

IDEA 3:

Last semester my final photography project was based on a
narrative I wrote for a film, that I never ended up making!
My idea is to tighten up the narrative and work on the
visual representation of the peice through video.
The photos taken were so strong that it further inspired me
to shoot the film!

This will in some respect be technically challenging for me
if I want to film in the dark, out in the middle of nowhere.


Script:

Scene 1: /The bottom of a swamp in Pickwick Tennessee/
Clay (kneeling) down to wash his hands in the water/
Clay (kneeling) starts tearing pieces of his skin off his arms and face.
(Latex make up and paint for fake skin)
Camera circles around Clay (standing) to get a
complete view of the swamp surroundings/

Scene 2: /Cemetery in the middle of the woods/

/Camera view rises out of a grave,
passes two other tombstones through the woods
and heads straight for Clay,
camera runs straight into him.
He sticks his chest out,
as if he was overpowered by some unknown force,
picks up a shovel that’s stuck in the mud next to him
and heads down a path for the woods/
Camera angle shows the side of his face (covered in blood)/

Scene 3: /Clay disappears into the woods.
He comes to an opening and looks towards the graveyard,
then walks towards a tombstone/

Scene 4: /He starts digging up the grave

Scene 5: /He sticks his arm in the dirt and starts
pulling bones out/ stuffing them into his bag one by one.

Scene 6: /He throws the brown bag over his shoulder
and starts walking towards the opposite end of the woods.

Scene 7: /Marion is laying on a concrete slab (Dead)
wearing a white dress, with her arms spread out.
(Camera rises up from Marion’s view to Clay standing
next to her with the bag of bones.)
Clay starts laying the bones on top of and all around her.
/Clay picks up the cup of blood that’s sitting
next to her and pours it on her forehead

Scene 8: /Clay walks back towards the woods and
continues to dig up the next grave.
He repeats the bone bagging and walks back towards Marion.
After he digs the last grave, he lays the last skull next
to Marion. She awakes from the dead and her and Clay walk
off into the woods together.

A Start