Response to Rehearsal

Overall, the rehearsal went well despite the fact that I was in an uncontrolled environment. Since I was filming at Shelby Farms and the horse area happens to be right next to the dog area, the dog people often come over and sit on the obstacles we need to film and will walk on the path in the way of the oncoming horse. Luckily, the obstacles we were filming had no one around and of the obstacles that people were on or around, such as the oxer, they were very good about moving out of our way. I am hoping we will have the same success next week. So, in the end, location was not a problem despite the issues at hand.

Next, the horse was extremely well behaved and easy to work with. While both the rider and I are very familiar with this particular horse, anything can still happen when working with an animal. The abundant amount of dogs and people worried us but the horse paid them no mind and did the job at hand. We did experience issues with people wanting to come up and pet the horse and we had to politely inform them that this was a working animal. 

Another concern was the rider. We did discover that I, as a director, needed to give more exact directions for starts and stops, however, the rider was extremely cooperative and did an excellent job despite all the distractions and lack of direction on my part.

The major issue with the shoot was that the sound was not working. The boom operator and I spent hours trying to figure out what was not functional and we came to no accurate conclusion. We are hoping that it is operator error and that we will solve our issues by next shoot, however, we are concerned that there is a possibility that something may be wrong with the equipment. Once again, we hope it is operator error.

As far as shots were concerned, we may have to rethink our tracking shot via car since we were informed that we needed a permit to drive on the field. The truck that hauls the horse trailer does have a permit and may be used, however, we would like to avoid unhooking it from the trailer if possible. Our tracking shot may end up in a running tracking shot (I mean, literally, running) or we will use a different type of shot to achieve our desired effect. The other shots were successful however. We were able to safely wedge the camera into obstacles to get interesting shots and film the obstacles at different angles without issue. The horse did not react to any of the equipment since we did introduce it to him before the shooting began.

We are eliminating the scene with the person actually counting down, however, the voice over for the count down will still remain. By doing this, I am attempting to show how this is about the mind of the rider and their memory, not necessarily the actual event as it happened.

Overall, as long as weather is not an issue, filming this should be successful as planned.

Pre-Production Package Project 2

Location Scout














Note: It is right next to a road so car noises could be a potential interference but we won't be next to the road for most of the filming. There are no power sources so a car or a generator are our only options.
1.
a. The number and types of actors required: 2 actors, 1 female with horseback riding experience:


And one animal actor, a horse with eventing experience:


b. How many scenes each actor will be in and the total length of their performances:
Both horse and rider will be in all scenes. The actual film time is estimated to be at an hour or under due to retakes. The actual film is predicted to be about 3 minutes long.
c. The requirements, number, and types of locations:
1 location with a large expanse is required. A backup location has been secured to do closeups and any smaller footage that can't be filmed in the first day. The location is a field at Shelby Farms reserved specifically for eventing horses.
d. The number and types of stunts and special effects:
Unless you count the jumps as stunts, which I would, the entire film is stunts. We plan on jumping a maximum of five obstacles in order to keep the horse from wearing out since we will be getting multiple angles on each jump. So I'd say about 5 stunts.
e. What special costumes and makeup will be required?
As far as costuming goes, we're going to go with the traditional cross-country attire of breeches, tall boots, cross-country vest, black velvet helmet, polo shirt, and gloves.
f. What props are required?
Spurs, riding crop, the obstacles, start box

10. Response to your rehearsal and test shots:
Rehearsal went well. The horse was introduced to all the obstacles for the film and had no issues jumping any of the fences. He was a tad excited when we unloaded him from the trailer and first got on him but after becoming aware of his surroundings was giving 100% of his attention to the rider and what she needed him to do.
We did note that despite the fact that that side is for horses only, it is right next to a dog section and the dog people frequently sit on the jumps, walk through areas where the horse is coming through, etc. One of our primary jobs when we first arrive at the location is going to be to inform everyone what's going on and to clear the area not only for the sake of our shots but for their safety as well.
We did have the issue of deciding what jumps to film. We had planned to use the water obstacle but at this time the water level is much too high and therefore too dangerous for the horse. We have planned to cut it out of our list of shots however, if it is better water level by the time we film we still have the shot plans and may film it.
Weather is also a concern to us. We will be heavily monitoring the weather and will make appropriate arrangements to film despite weather calamities. Weather is not only going to affect our day for filming but also our shot types. We have some shots that require tracking with a car and if it's too muddy, we cannot film with the car for fear of it getting stuck.
Our last concern of course is the horse itself. While we do have our main horse lined up, we do have a backup horse in the event the other is unable to perform or is causing issues.

11. Fix any problem scenes by working with the actors or perhaps even rewriting the scene:
At this time, there are no problem scenes. Both the rider and horse are cooperating effectively and are willing and able to do the scenes presented for them.

Response to Videos

Carolee Schneeman - Meat Joy Response:

The entire color scheme of the oranges really adds to the idea of meat and flesh, the way it eerily glows in that particular shade of orange under that light. Schneeman sexualizes and fetishes the idea of lust and meat. It's obviously a strong feminist piece by it's tone and imagery. The voice over overlaps between English and French, causing the viewer to have to concentrate on their known language. The cheesy music in the background and the smiles of the participants give the movie a happy-go-lucky feel while the underlying meaning is quite sinister, obvious in the way that dead chickens and fish are thrown on the participants.

New Essay and Images

Images that represent the types of shots, feel, etc. I want to achieve:













Essay Rework into Pitch:

Scene 1: A close-up of a horse's eye, the sounds of heavy breathing from the horse. Switch to close up of human's eye and human's breathing. Close-up of human's mouth.

Scene 2: The time-keep calls out the 1 minute countdown mark. You hear countdown, starting with hearing all the numbers to skipping to counting down in tens, illusion of things speeding up. While hearing countdown you see the rider and horse anxiously pacing.

Scene 3: When you hear "10" in the countdown, the audio slows down to countdown the final 10 seconds. You see quick cuts between the horse walking around the startbox, the rider close-up fumbling with the reins, the time-keeper looking at the watch, the time-keeper yelling out the count, the horse entering into the startbox, the final 5 numbers being counted down followed by a slow-motion take-off of the horse from the startbox.

Scene 4: A sudden speed up to a tracking shot of the horse galloping to the first fence, a shot of the horse jumping over the first fence from the underside. A series of quick cuts between open galloping, jumping over fences, closeups on the rider and horse all in many different shots varying in angle and space.

Scene 5: After the final fence, a slow-motion shot from behind of the horse galloping towards the finish line.

In Class Exercise 3/3

1. I would change my manifesto to be more exact. I discuss a few things I like and a few things I hate but I don't go into superb detail about the specific things I like and hate for the most part. This may be due to the fact that I have very few things I hate 100% of the time and the same goes for things I love. 

I can't realize on my own what is working in this manifesto. I can say I believe that the reiteration of the idea of comedy is unnecessary and can be condensed. It would make sense if I was trying to drive home the idea of hilarity being the most important thing but I have no interest in making comedy my only genre; Therefore, to be correct to myself, I need to make it clear that the other things that are important to me like drama, excitement, etc. are not forgotten as it appears they have been in the current manifesto.

I realize there is not a real good correlation between my memory essay and my manifesto. I wrote about a memory that does not in any way, that I conceive at this point, deal with parody, satire, comedy, etc. It's not funny. I like making comedy but does that mean I have to make comedy 100% of the time? I'm not interested in just the silly. So I suppose it means I will have to change my manifesto to match this inclination or I need to find a new memory that matches the manifesto. 

My essay video needs to be changed in the aspects of its drawn out nature. I'm a get to the point person and don't like all the extra fluff when it comes to visually representing stuff (however, i'm the exact opposite when it comes to writing. For some reason I can't tone down my fluff in writing.). I need to make this video pack a punch and go between scenes quickly to reflect the panic and awareness of surroundings. It needs to be punchy, not in a funny way but in an action-studded way. It needs to project anxiety and excitement, something I need to revise in my manifesto as this portion is not there and is extremely important to me.