The Kings Court

Its time to put in that final push to get our movie into CAP hollywood. The King's Court is about two drug dealers that bet on a streetball game. One of them supports a group built around a super star while the other supports a better all around team.

We have gotten both the rough cut and the music selected. As well as cut down most of the clips we don't need/want. 

What we still have to do/what I would like to do:

- do a little bit of color grading

- totally complete all edits to the film timeline

- get some voice overs of danny

- put in the credits

- finish the music

- fine tune the audio

- put in a title slide

I think if we go in after school and work before school on wednesday and thursday our film can be great. 

I found this video on youtube and it was absolutely awesome...so i had to share it. 

Cap hollywood 3

Since the last post last week we have been diligently working to edit down the different clips that we have. We had almost 100 different shots because of the style of film that we were doing and this meant that we needed to spend a lot of time sifting through and finding what was really important.

Our film is based around a basketball game, to film this we played a game over the period of a couple hours and then filmed shots of it. Thus lots of film. (thank you very much to Connor for this because he took time out of his weekend to help us film.)

We couldn't edit the first day because our film wasn't in the studio and then the second day of editing we managed to bring together which clips we could potential use. Then after school and on the final day we edited the film down into a basic rough cut which we can work off of. We have also found a bunch of different soundcloud clips that would sound amazing.

Finally we got the credits written.

From this point onward we need to get into class and do the editing. I hope to come in after school at least a few times this week.

CAP hollywood!

Okay well i lost the half sheet that told us what we were supposed to write about so i will just explain where we are and what more we have to do.

First a summary of the story.

Our story is called the Kings Court and it takes place on a basketball court in Detroit. These two drug dealers are betting on a 2x2 game between Dominique, a great prospect, and 2 other players. The dealers conduct a bet and then act as coaches for the two teams. The story the entails the game.

This weekend we were supposed to film, and some how against great odds we managed to.

So here is what happened. We had gotten all the actors to say they will come for the film, we had gotten all the props, we had gotten the camera, and we seemed ready to begin. Come Saturday morning we show up at the set early to get some initial shots. Then at 10:30 when the actors were supposed to show up they didn't except one, but I'll talk about that later. Lucky some kids there agreed to play all of our missing roles and we managed to get the whole film filmed.

Anyway the only actor that came was Danny. (im not sure if im supposed to put last names but you guys know him...the basketball one...) So thank you so much to him.

Now we have to begin the editing process but really the hardest parts are passed. Also we have found some good music so everything should be fine.

CAP HOLLYWOOD

Our film for CAP hollywood is the story of a basketball superstar that gets tied up in a bet between two drug dealers. The dealers each try to use their influence to get a game of pick up basketball to go one way or another. Dominique, the main character, has to pick whether to risk getting hurt by the more violent one, or letting his team down and losing.

We have gotten pretty far in the preproduction, but we are still looking for anyone who would like to play part of the crowd or a drug dealer. So if you would like to or know anyone, come talk to us.

Also on saturday me and connor, well mostly connor, but whatever thats not the point did refractography and its super cool and you should go look at his blog which is at http://connor2015.blogspot.com/

The Fridge

Last weekend I went to the most amazing place I have been to in awhile. It was a tiny art gallery wedged behind a huge dance studio. The gallery itself is perhaps the size of a classroom, but contains a beautiful array of different artists and paintings. Currently they are running an event called "Hello My Name Is", which is based on street art and graffiti painting. What they did was they gave all the artists a poster that was like a name tag and then the artist would represent themselves. The show runs through March 31st and has a panel discussion (which I know nothing about) on the 23rd.

The art work is absolutely incredible and it really shows a kind of art work that gets barely any attention. Plus on a corner down the street there is a bakery called the Spring Mill Bread company which sells fantastic brownies. So ya know...if the graffiti wasn't enough.

This is the gallery

More of the Hello My Name is Exhibit

The Fridge

516 1/2 8th street, SE

Washington, DC 20003

Documentary Project

Our documentary project was a bit of a roller coaster ride. We began with the idea of homelessness. We wanted to go to Down Town Washington and talk to some of the homeless people there and get their stories, then talk to programs like Shepard's table and find out how people can help. Getting their stories would allow us to convey the idea that they are just like anyone else and they need help, someone has to step up. Unfortunately our idea didn't quite come through, partially because we didn't have a strong enough base to begin with, that is our idea was based off of interviews and not research which meant we had to get interviews, that we didn't. The other reason our project failed was because our teacher didn't agree with it. As a result of this, our group instead did a welcome video for the British kids that came to stay with us. We basically did a montage of the school along with shots of students welcoming the British kids and saying their favorite aspects of the school.


In the creation of this project I was really surprised as to how hard it is to create a montage that seems messy and playful on purpose. When we began the project we found some playful music and attempted to create a montage style welcome that showed how lively the school is. This is a lot harder that I thought it would be, but we pushed through and learned the tricks of the trade. I was particularly surprised as to how much structure the video had to have to make it look unstructured.

The biggest challenge we had was convincing the teacher to let us film it. We failed. Once we switched to the welcome video production went much smoother and we didn't run into any problems. If I did the project again I would lay out exactly what the plan was for the video earlier so that there would be time to change ideas if the teacher didn't like it. Because we didn't do this, we couldn't actually make a documentary which was depressing.

As the teacher it would have been helpful to ask everyone to make a plan at the very beginning entailing the idea and how they plan to film it. Thus any big changes could be made immediately  after that point there would be no chances to change ideas. This would make for a smoother project.

From the documentaries I have made in the past I know that these projects are quite fun and I'm glad we are doing one, I have one request. We should do claymations, those are great and really allow students to leave the confinements of the school.

Gun Control

So this is probably going to be an incredibly biased blog post but that is perfectly okay. In the past couple months there have been plenty of examples of gun violence, the shooting in New Town (which has been beaten to death), the shooting in northern New York where a man lit fire to a building and then shot at the fire fighters when they came to help, and finally the shooting in a Mall in Oregon. These events have spurred an pro gun control presidential agenda that the republicans and the NRA are fighting every step of the way (which isn't all that surprising).

President Obama recently released his plan for gun control, which would re-instate the assault weapons ban, limit magazine sizes to ten rounds, have mandatory universal background checks, and provide mental health care. All of these are in an effort to decrease gun violence while still keeping guns legal.

In Massachusetts the amount of gun related violence has increased almost 27% since 1998 according to the Boston Globe. This is a state that has some of the strongest gun laws including a ban on all semi automatic rifles (the national ban only includes automatic weapons). Specialists say that this is because of other states lower gun regulation. If someone wants a gun in MA they drive three hours to another state and bring it back.

I support banning of all guns but as we have learned in NSL the NRA is mildly strong and probably wouldn't allow that. Therefore the only way to decrease gun violence is through a stronger nationally instated gun law. As shown in MA state by state gun laws don't matter because people can get the guns from other states. The national government must instate a fierce gun control law so that people can't buy guns from other states.