Business as Usual…
It seems that the world is in a bit of a panic right now. Or at least some of the world is, and the rest of the world is trying to figure out what is so upsetting. Because of the virus that has infected a little over 100,000 people at this point our school administration has decided to “extend” our spring break by two weeks by making those classes that would normally happen online. Or maybe the assignments will just be due at a certain time. I’m not really sure what is going to happen, but I am a betting man and I am going to bet that in three weeks this is going to blow over.
What I do know is that because of the outrage the media has caused about this virus my stabilizer isn’t going to arrive for at least another two weeks. It is estimated that it won’t come in until March 25th, even though it is 2020 and we have actual drones that can deliver packages now. DJI told me that it was because of the phone holder mount that I ordered with it that would take 10–15 days to process before it even ships, and when I asked them if they could split up the order and send the stabilizer first(which only takes a day before it ships) they told me it was out of their control and there was absolutely not a single thing they could do! So I asked if I could just pick up the kit from their store in New York, and they could just ship me the phone holder whenever, and they told me that even that was not an option.
Furthermore, I am worried that this might impact business in the near future if this becomes a serious problem. I am well aware of the negative impact this hype is causing to our economy and the world’s economy. I know that it is not good for business. Again, I am guessing that this will not be the case and my project will not be seriously impacted by this setback.
The extra two weeks of being home in Cherry Hill is going to give me a lot of time to produce our first official short film. Regardless of what the situation ends up being with the virus, the stabilizer, or with people in general, we will be shooting a short film, and the first revision of it will be done by the time we get back from our extended break.
With our first short film on the agenda, I have decided to really dig into the process behind short films. This past week I have watched at least five or six hours worth of YouTube videos relating to short films or videography so it won’t be possible to link everything that I have looked at. However there are a few videos that really helped me make sense of some things. Linked below is a video from Film Riot that is a great explanation of the process behind creating a short film. Click here to check it out
I also spent a lot of time learning more about one of my favorite directors, Quentin Tarantino. These two videos are about how Tarantino keeps his viewers hooked in his movies and you can visit those here and here. I mentioned these videos because I think that Tarantino does almost everything right. I decided to write a short film based on something that was very dialogue heavy so that I would be focused on making it interesting for the plot and not for the action. I think this will make me more accountable for the little things in video production, and I think that will help me learn a lot. I think Tarantino was the inspiration for this idea because I was watching a lot of his dialogue heavy scenes, and in all of the scenes I watch there is just such great flow to it. He is truly an artist in this sense, and he does a really good job of keeping the viewer attentive and drawing their attention to specific things in the shot at hand. I hope to utilize some of his techniques in my upcoming work, and if my work could come to anything half as good as his I’d definitely see that as a victory.
