Week 2

Wednesday, 3.27.2019

Initial Project Proposal

I am going to start an eight-part Senior Portfolio for the Scholastic Art Awards. All eight films will be semi-autobiographical narrative short films, some about personal topics that blend in aspects of video essay, some more like vignettes that capture specific instances. They will all be single-setting conversations between 2-3 characters, some of whom may represent me and my thoughts, and others, various people in my life or people I have encountered. Through dialogue, I will depict certain experiences of mine and explore opinions I hold. I have started an ongoing list of "things I want to remember", so I think I'm going to pick eight "things I want to remember" from this list that I think will translate well into film. My goal is that each film (one chapter of my portfolio) will take three weeks to complete: one week of pre-production, one week of production, and one week of post-production. Following this schedule, I hope to finish two of eight chapters. I'm going to do pre-production, production, post-production for each chapter in chronological order rather than pre for both chapters at the same time, production for both at the same time, etc. because I think once I have one fully completed, it'll be easier to complete the second one because I'll have a definitive example to follow.

Weekly Timeline:

• Week 1: Idea generation and project planning
• Week 2: Beginning of writing process and solidifying of overall concept
• Week 3: Finish writing Chapter 1
• Week 4: Film Chapter 1
• Week 5: Edit and finalize Chapter 1
• Week 6: Leeway in case anything took longer than expected
• Week 7: Write Chapter 2
• Week 8: Film Chapter 2
• Week 9: Edit and finalize Chapter 2
• Week 10: Leeway in case anything took longer than expected

Timeline of Spring-Summer-Fall:

• Upper Spring (ART509): 2 chapters in 10 weeks
• Upper Summer (independently): 4 chapters in 13? weeks
• Senior Fall (IP): 2 chapters in 10 weeks

The unifying theme of my Senior Portolio will be "Memory and Nostalgia". Since a "portfolio" represents the compilation of an artist's best work and experiences leading up to the time of creation, I want my Senior Portfolio to act as a documented collection of events and memories that have impacted me the most leading up to my last year of high school. In the past, my projects have not been very personal or have not dealt with topics explicitly about me. Through this portfolio, I want to explore facets of my identity, my beliefs, and my place in the limited world I have experienced. In this way, the portfolio will be not only a collection of past memories, but a reflection on how those memories impact my present. I have noticed that a lot of my writing fixates on the past and nostalgia for experiences that only exist behind me, so this project will challenge me to consider my memories in relation to my future, something I find more difficult to think about than the past.

I will not act in any of eight chapters, so I will cast peers and friends. Since each chapter will only need a few and there won't be any intense acting, casting shouldn't be a huge issue. I will direct actors and photography alone because the project is so personal to me (and I don't trust anyone else's cinematography), but it would be helpful to have multiple cameras to capture multiple angles simultaneously. I'll ask Polk about borrowing since I only own one.

Coffee and Cigarettes has been a huge help to me! I want to emulate the general feeling of vignettes that imply a greater narrative than what is presented but also work as self-contained segments. Maybe it would help to watch autobiographical works? Or works in which the filmmaker is represented heavily? I would also like to watch more films that follow a similar medium to Coffee and Cigarettes.

Monday, 4.1.2019

Journal Entry

This week was a productive writing and development week. I've written five minutes of my first chapter already! It needs more work though, but it's good to be putting ideas down.