Ultimus/Evaluation

I remember having this crazy idea to make a movie out of a little over a year ago. This idea was totally conceptual, and one of the most reminiscent things about it was how revolutionary I had envisioned it to be. It wasn't supposed to be a clone of Cloud Atlas, or even Looper from the start. This idea was almost completely original when I first came up with it; a way to have one individual relive their mistakes, and continue to elude from them was the concept, and this had always fascinated me. Then I began to write about the character a bit more, slowly adding detail that was (is) subtle in the film, but was needed to further motivate the production is this picture. I thought of a concept where this character had lived for hundreds of years, and how gaps in time demonstrate how the smallest interruptions (the characters' actions) in space time can cause a reaction that was written to be apparent, but not obvious, in the film's original script. I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out how I was going to convey this sort of idea; that's when I came up with the process of having 'lapses' between each of his different lives in different time periods, with the original script having all of their actions closely knit and apparent for various, and yet one simple reason. It was the idea of how 'one' can either live with regret for the rest of his/her life, or run from it and leave the likes of faults in the past where it belongs. Besides the small cuts I had to make specifically for the animation, I believe it has lived up to the script's expectations, even if the majority of the audience won't understand the film. The script was written with it originally being a challenge to the viewer; it was written as a test, an enigma for people to try and understand, to ultimately argue the meaning (or probably just the point, in effortless conversation) of Recall¹.

The final cut of the film has color corrected scenery, fixed animations/effects, and a soundtrack.

Visions6 Response

This year, Visions was interesting and especially for me because I was actually a part of the staff last year, so I thought it would be interesting to see the festival as a spectator once again. I attended the entire festival (with the exception of the video race and dessert reception), and from what I witness everything was organized very professionally. This year’s short films and lectures were all very interesting, but compared to last year I think that Vision’s Six wasn’t too concerned with their proclaimed theme of the festival, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some of the films that stood out to me were the animations, especially Still the Animation. I’m not going to describe what happens in still, but I did want to quote on the fact that it described the overall theme almost perfectly. In an age where animation is primarily target who younger (occasionally older) viewers, Still takes a concept and uses this to not only exploit a format for its backdrop, but also exit the screen with a great open ending. After film block one was the keynote address/Q&A featuring Jaclyn Gramigna, who did an excellent job with her presentation; this addition to the festival was interesting (and nostalgic), especially since Jaclyn was the first to win the Visionary Award a few years ago. After her presentation, I briefly left the festival because I wasn’t participating in the video race, however I did return to see the video race screening which was surprisingly fantastic. Skipping ahead to the conference block, I found my friend Travis’ paper intriguing, and also Garrett Spake’s presentation to be somewhat interesting as well. I think Garrett did a good job addressing some of the merchandising/rebranding issues that Hollywood has done in the past. Film block two was fantastic. I think that the highlight of the block (just in my opinion) was Pirouette. I feel like this animation, judging from the consensus of thoughts that people gave whom I had spoken to, thought that the Red Witch was astronomically better than any of the other animated films showcased this year. Pirouette is probably the most underrated animation/film that Visions Six had to offer this year. Overall, the festival was epic and it only keeps getting better every year.    

Marketing & Distribution Plan

http://riveramike15.wix.com/recallanimation 

The Fine Cut/Mid-April Update

I finished the fine cut today, and now I can focus on fixing lesser things in the film. The last few things my computer should be able to fix are the backgrounds for One; in each shot, the background is still grey so the color would have to change. The problem with this color is that it's too similar to the past, and with that being the only exception, every other time period looks pretty damn good, or at least passable. Green is the present, red is the future, and black/white is the past, but what should the final hue for the unknown era be? After I've finished the the dozens of One shots, everyone will see witness the color, and hopefully realize why it was chosen. Now for sound; so I was finally able to create a soundtrack for the film, by attempting to match the time period while simultaneously adding a more contemporary tone to the music. There is also the addition of the shock transition that transports the viewer between the four distinctive time periods (Two being the least visited), so hopefully that works for everybody. That's all.

Super Early 2nd April Update: Music

This week I'm going to be working on sound. The priority will be music for Recall; there are four different time periods, and three prominent concentrations that determines the type of music needed for each individual shot. As far as the editing is concerned, each piece will begin with the first shot of their respective time periods. Because the film is somewhat rapidly paced, the music will be cut according to the shot, but the most important aspect is that each piece will pick-up where it left off based on the shot the film is on. This pretty means that four (three) different pieces will be playing simultaneously, but not together, from beginning to end. The present will have something contemporary playing, possibly something that resembles pop music.. but I'm not too concerned with this since it has a smaller presence in the film compared to the others. The past will have something classical playing in the background, but hopefully it's not going to be too uppity. The two future(s) will have music that is similar to one another, but also distinctive in their own respective ways. And that's pretty much what the plan is for music.

First Week of April Update

I was able to come up with new ideas for my project, but nothing that can fix the background issue within the majority of the film. It was difficult in the pre-production to pinpoint the exact amount of items I needed to create for Recall, thus making it a huge scheduling nightmare; if I had continued with my work flow involving a focus on creating all of my materials prior to animating them, I wouldn't have been able to have a rough cut made in time. That's kind of why the cut looks bad. Bare bones, and spineless because the models are bland and the characters are unable to represent a time period. Feedback indicates this one was botched, so I'll be adding whatever is necessary to fix this mess to the point where it at least can hide the worse parts.

Last March Update

So like everyone else around this time of year, I've been hammered with tons of work from other classes including this one. It's been difficult trying to focus most of my attention on one particular project, so production on all of them has been constantly delaying. I'm going to try and focus on transitions for my film this weekend, and the week after I can begin working on the soundtrack for the film if there will be one for it. I'm still deciding whether or not I want to design sound for my film or if I want to keep it silent and create a soundtrack for it instead. I'm convinced that it can work both ways, if they're both done really well. I think I've already mentioned the lightning effects I've been thinking about using for the transitions between time periods; the shot would have a character perform the appropriate action, and the quick, yet elaborate effect would appear and signal the viewer to the next shot. Other ideas I've had include extending a few shots with others by creating montage sequences, or tweaking camera movements that could make the film more impactful in a discreet way. Besides that, just the editing would be the primary focus, as it is now. That's all.