Jake Landis's Blog

 Everything is set up and ready to go for Monday night, we are going to meet up at Solorzano's pizza at 5 P.M. We have all of the props ready to go and everybody has called off their work and said they are going to show up in suits. We have all the recording materials like the gimbal and the camera, and we just have to wait until Monday because that is the only day we are all free.  Me and Ethan went over the script and revised it, so it is perfect and rid of any punctuation errors and such. It also has emotions in it and the tones we need when we are speaking so I think it will be better for us, and I am going to print it out and bring it so none of us can forget it. Here it is.  Opening Conversation: Joey (Tony Grasso): "The Yankees got a game tonight. I've got a few players making sure they don't play their best. So if you're betting, bet on the underdogs" Jake (Romano De Luca): "How much did you put down?" Joey (Tony Grasso): "Enough. A hund...

 So, we are incorporating more dialogue into our film opening then in our midterm because we received critiquing about our midterm having too much action and not enough introductory sequences that created the conflict, below is the lines we are planning to use for the dialogue to create the rest of action for the movie 1st Dialogue Joey: "The Yankees got a game tonight, I'm paying off the players to have a bad game, so bet big on the bad guys" This line is good because it fits the location of mafias because it shows that the setting is in New York City and it brings the idea of illegal sports gambling which was one of the things that the mafia's used to do to profit. Jake: "How much are we talking" Joey: "100 thousand I don't want to raise suspicion, you guys were sloppy on that last job, have you even gotten rid of that dead body" This brings up more plot because it shows that this mafia is not scared of any violence, maybe foreshadowing somet...

I watched a video from Camber Film School on shooting inside of a car, no good inspiration from this video because we want a shot from behind the characters and not in front because if it is behind it is creating a more mysterious presence during the conversation. But we ended up sticking with something different because we think it will be better and more fitting for the film. But I did have a very good idea for the end of the opening where the screen will cut to black and then after a second we will bring it back to a final scene that leaves everyone on a cliff hanger and it will be the right hand man loading a gun and watching the two mafia members dispose of the body.   Also, for our storyboard we are going to have less action than in our midterm because the opening of a movie is not always about actions but mostly about introducing characters and how they are and what they want, but do not fret there will be a little action just not a lot. 2/24 I have wrapped up our story...

 So, we have planned a filming date for March 2nd which is a Monday after schools which is going to be perfect because we are going for a dark night to film on because for our movie it would suit it better to have a dark background especially if we are going to dispose of a "dead body". I am just hoping that it works out because we previously had plans to film on March 1st, but it turns out two of our groups' members have previous plans that they forgot of.  I have also reached out to Drake about using his music and I do not think he will reply because he is a very busy guy but at least, I tried. But we will most likely use "God's Plan" as the song for the opening credits, and I will update this back again if he does reach back out and that would be pretty cool. This is the photo of the message I sent Drake. Even though I have only given him two days to respond it is very unlikely that he will respond but I will post another photo if I do get a response. I h...

 I have began to research fonts for the opening credits of my movie because you can not make a good opening to a movie without including opening credits and those in themselves have to be good. Not only do the fonts have to be good but also the imaging in the background and the music playing. So I have watched some opening credits of movie and taken some of their ideas and am going to try and incorporate them into my own movie. I have watched the opening to the movie Reservoir Dogs (1992) on the website Art of the title and am very captured by the way they introduce the actors. As they walk in slow motion the camera shows each of their faces and introduces their names to show who is starring in the movie, I think this is very clever because when doing opening credits, since we only have such a short time period to film we can add some of our introductions while the credits are playing just as they did in Reservoir Dogs. But I think in our movie our four main actors will be sitting ...

 Before I made the midterm my teacher had us working on a promo video to practice our editing skills and our skills using the app Adobe premiere pro. This assignment was able to teach me the basics of Adobe premiere pro by going over how to upload videos and audio which is very tedious because if you drag the link into the wrong box or click the wrong button it can screw up, you're the entirety of your work. It also taught me how to add edits such as dissolves which are very cool because it allows the video to look so much smoother and more professional than just a normal straight cut. The audio is also important to know to because we learned how to line it up to match the video and how to adjust decibel levels to make the audio the perfect level to listen to, so it is not to loud and choppy or not to quiet and blank. These skills have helped me throughout creating the midterm and when I edit my opening scene for the end of the year it will help me succeed.  Below is a link to...

 So, a friend of mine and Ethans has informed us that he is allowing us to use his nice camera that he uses for photography, this is excellent news for us because his camera is very nice. He uses a Sony a6400 to take pictures of cars and his camera also allows for recording. It can hold a very high frame rate so our shots will look very smooth, and it also reaches up to 120fps which is very good if we want to film any shots in slow motion. He also has a gimbal which he is letting us use and I think that will be the most important part of filming because it will allow for everything, we film to be perfectly level and firm because in our opening handheld will not be necessary for anything. Below is some research I compiled about the Sony a6400.  The Sony a6400 can record in Ultra High Definition 4K with 3840 horizontal pixels and 2160 vertical pixels all at up to 30 frames per second but we are going to have to go into the settings to lower it into to 24fps to keep the cinematic...

  So, me and my group collaborated recently and began planning our ideas on paper, through a story board. I worked on the first page, and below is what I came up with for about the first 30-40 seconds of our opening. At first, we are going to create an establishing shot in possibly a small diner or pizza shop of 4 of us sitting in suits talking, but at first, we are going to add background music, and you will not be able to hear what we are saying until something important is being said. I am taking this inspiration from Ethan who just recently watched a movie that implemented this, called Reservoir Dogs. But we might also include a voiceover, but we are still debating this.  We have about 2 more weeks until we begin filming on March 1st and I think we are on perfect pace to be done with pre-production by then. I will continue to work on the story board throughout the rest of this week, but I am really excited to see how this opening turns out because of the thought I have app...

  The Alto Knights (2025)   The opening credits:  The opening credits  start  with  the title of the movie spread out the  whole length  of the screen. The font is very  blocky,  and it is white with a black background. This part is  very  simple ,  and I feel like it does not fit the vibe of a  mafia   movie;  the font is very modern compared to mafia being an older  type of genre.  Then it slowly  disappears  and changes to a smaller size of the same font and  includes  lowercase instead of all  uppercases  saying “Based on true events ”.  Then it fades  out,  and the movie begins with  a simple  text   saying,  “New York 1957” .   The movie has received some recognition for their trailer with their motion graphics and title graphics,  but  it has not received any awards.   However,  I chose t o research thi...

I am going to use the iPhone 17 as the camera for filming our movie and below is going to be my research into the best settings and features of the camera. Set the camera to High Efficiency format, with Photo Mode at 24MP and ProRAW & Resolution control enabled. These will all allow for better picture and video quality when filming, using the camera to the  best extent possible.       When videoing, use the 24mm default lens and 4K/30fps or 4K/60fps. This will ensure that we are using the best possible camera when filming because the iPhone is equipped with a few different options, it will also mean that out videos are in the best fps for the iPhone which is one that is not to low but also not to high that the iPhone cannot handle it.  A very important feature in the iPhone camera is the Grid and the Level. The grid will make it, so each character is centered in the shot, following the rule of thirds. The Level will help with making the shots flat and n...

 So, we have just started our 8-week assignment for AICE Media Studies, and this is going to be the start of my group and I's planning. So, we did our midterm on a Mafia movie, it was under the crime genre, and I received feedback from my classmates that my two-minute opening could use some work. Me and my group have decided we are going to re-film the entire opening and we have a pretty good plan of what is going to happen. We are going to have Ethan film most of the movie because we do not need him as an actor anymore. This will be very helpful for the entire project because we will not need to switch cameramen, this was a problem for our midterm because we had to refilm many scenes because one cameraman would film horizontally like they were supposed to then in the next scene it would be much higher up and vertical which did not look very good.       So now that we have the cameraman covered, I am going to go over our initial ideas for out actors. So first me...