Worklog 11/7

Monday: Film with Tommy and Brian

Tuesday: Film with Tommy and Brian

Wednesday: Film with Tommy and Brain again

Thursday: Continue writing script

Friday: Brainstorming on a shorter project to film

Luke Cage: Series So Far...

In 2013, Netflix and Marvel announced a Daredevil series to premiere and be exclusive to Netflix, and would be the start to a branch off of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that would consist of shows that would be on Netflix(Although I wasn't aware until I started seeing many subway ad posters for it in the Winter of 2014/15), and the series based on Marvel comics' Daredevil would kick it off and would premiere in Spring of 2015. After Daredevil's second season, Netflix's other Marvel series Jessica Jones premiered, in which the subject of this Blogpost's character Luke Cage had been introduced and was in the show as a supporting character that had been in one of the show's story arcs. And then after that, On September 28th, 2016 Marvel's Netflix show for Luke Cage had finally been released as the third Marvel Netflix show, and this is my investigation and introduction to characters and plots for the show's first season.

See the trailer for the show below:

Character Introduction:

Luke Cage:



Luke Cage is the hero and protagonist of this show. Played by Mike Colter, he is a man who had become an experimental subject and had turned into an indestructible man externally, yet tortured internal soul who finds himself becoming the hero of Harlem, after a man he looks up to is tragically killed.

Cornell Stokes(Cottonmouth):

Cornell Stokes A.K.A. Cottonmouth is the show's first main antagonist, he is the owner of a nightclub called Harlem's Paradise and along with his cousin Mariah Dillard, they both rule Harlem through politics and crime.

Mariah Dillard:

Mariah is one of the other antagonists of the first season, she is a strong woman in Harlem's politics and finds herself doing even the most questionable to keep her place in the politics and in power.

Claire Temple:

Claire is a nurse who was first introduced us in Daredevil, then appeared in Jessica Jones and now appears alongside Luke Cage, even though she was a major character when she helped out Daredevil and co. I feel as though she is much more of a major character in Luke Cage, as she appears on the screen for much longer, even helping out our protagonist Luke when he's in bad condition like she did Daredevil.

All in all this was a great first season, I just scratched the surface on the characters and who they are as well as what they go through and how they evolve within the show's first season. I highly recommend watching it after watching the other Netflix Marvel shows as they all are on a timeline. This show besides having the realistic grimy New York superhero theme. There's also many scenes that go into the political issues that we are currently going through in America.

Digital Portfolio - Checkpoint #1

So far in the marking period what I've been working on outside of school first of all is a making concept for a script i'm writing centered around teenage drug dealers. But, the concept itself that intend to write the script on, isn't necessarily realistic in terms of the scenarios because I intend to make the film stylized and maybe a bit exaggerated in terms of how realistic it is, it's kind of  like i'm putting teens in a sort of situation that the characters in films like Scarface and Godfather are in. Like Organized crime in New York or Miami... But with teens from Central PA. Usually when I start script-writing I like brainstorming first on what characters would look like, how they would act, how to make them different and unique next to other characters. As well as, thinking about who I know who would a role the best or where to shoot. When I do write scripts, most of the time I do these things before even writing the script which has been productive for me before but, other times it's also been the reason why I give up on writing the script itself. This is due to me just getting lost in the concepts and brainstorming or just breaking up the concept I had to make some other new ones.

To make concepts of what certain characters will look like instead of drawing them I use this program called Plotagon. Most people use this program for simple animation skits and such but I use the character creator to make concepts on what i'm aiming for most of the characters look like (based off of which friends I may want for the role) and be dressed like.

These are screenshots of some character concepts:

Aside from that, I will also be acting in both of Tommy's films with Brian as the cinematographer.

and dropping a fire mixtape.

nah jk. 

Work Log 10/11/16

Monday- Continue with concepts and potential scriptwriting

Tuesday- Draw concepts on script characters

Wednesday- Research on certain things within script

Thursday- Work on dialogue

Friday- Start looking for potential actors

Why Music is So Very Important in Film:

In cinema, music is a very pivotal and important tool. It can sometimes be an accessory to a scene or even be the best part of a scene, the whole mood of a certain part of a film could be completely different with different pieces of music. An example of this is in a video below.

In the video above you can see, the whole mood and perspective of the audience looking at the scene completely changes based on the music being played throughout the scene. Music selection most of the time is a very looked over detail by beginners, yet crucial part of film.

In many scenes in works of Cinema, the music chosen for a certain scene can make that scene notorious because of the way a scene is shot combined with the music to create a potentially legendary scene in Cinema due to how those two are combined to make something beloved to many viewers. Next to dialogue, music is one example for a non-visual reason to love a film.

Another example of very a famous scene incorporating music would be the scene from Quentin Tarantino's film Reservoir Dogs. In the scene it shows character Mr. Blonde "interrogating" a cop and ending up beating on him and even cutting his ear off, the song "Stuck in The Middle" is played during this which plays out as a contrast to what's going on, an upbeat and quite happy song going on while Mr. Blonde is torturing someone. It gives the mood of the scene a sort of sick, twisted, playfulness and dark humor to it, which Tarantino is known for.

Work Log 9/30

Work Log - 9/30

Monday- Coming up with concepts for script.

Tuesday- Starting to write script.

Wednesday- Writing & typing script.

Thursday- Brainstorming and coming up with ideas and concepts to add in, take out, or change in the original drafts of the script.

Friday- Hopefully being half finished or at least 1/4 of the script finished because I'm actually planning on making this script pretty extensive.

Layering

What I've Learned About Layering?

Layering is an art form that consists of combining and layering different styles or pieces of art and/or photography over one another and merging different art to create another type of art.

My Example and Director of Music Video:

Earl Sweatshirt & Samiyam's music video for "Mirror"

Directed by Ruff Mercy

Director Ruff Mercy uses alot of layering in this video as well as many of his other works,In this video he does this by incorporating both old works of art as well as his animations in a psychedelic format, even layering his art over clips already filmed in live action, while also including the artists who created the music within the animation. This is an example of contemporary form of layering that is seen often throughout recent times within rock and hip-hop culture.

Other examples of layering within Ruff Mercy's work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfuCLp8VEng

Examples above of how he uses live action clips and adds art to them as well as mixing different art forms.

Multi Cam Sequence Example from Concert Video

Crane Shot From High Noon

Crane Demo

An Artistic Tragedy

Flashlight Productions

For my production logo, I'm glad that my animation related to the logo itself by having an animation that looks like flashlight being projected on the logo itself. What I would've done different is I would've had the flashlight effect maybe be more realistic, as well as having more axis' of production, but I hadn't because I was afraid it would interfere with the original idea I had. Other than that, I was pretty happy with my Production logo.

Select Your Genre:

Select Your Genre Assignment:

The Genre I am interested in filming a short for is Suspense/Thriller. I am interested in this Genre because I enjoy the suspense and the edge of your seat factor this genre has. The Suspense/Thriller genre keeps you guessing, keeps your blood rushing, and keeps you excited until the very end. It's not my top favorite genre but it interests me because of the reasons I've listed above. The directors of this genre I would most like to emulate out of many is Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Mary Harron.

Production Logos

A Set Of Production Company Logos:

I chose these production company logos because I like the similar features these logos have. The logos have rather minimalistic designs with slate backgrounds mostly, also they are centered but also at the same time they are each unique from each other because of their own designs, whether it be a certain type of font or their own illustration or artwork or animation.