AHHHH

WE'RE DONE

AAHHHH!!

Update!

Think we're in a good place, divided the rest of what we have to do to the following:

Audio editing: Jackson

Colour correction: Jake

Subtitles/Credits: Hannah

--Hannah

After break

Scene 6 is sorted.

Scene 4 (minus colour correction) is moooostly done as with Scene 2 (mostly).

Scenes 3 and 5 need some work mostly in terms of adding in the Arabic.

We have all of the footage from Morocco, still thinking of different ways to tie it all in and trying them out.

--Hannah

Hi again

We finished filming on Friday, fingers crossed. I'm getting the footage from Morocco and starting to play with it, and, as Jackson said, I'll be Arabic-ing it up shortly.

--Hannah

November 17,2010

Today I logged and captured the interrogation scenes (the last of the major scenes of the film) and the arabic voice over by joe moussa. I edited all of Rachel's lines together, leaving gaps for the arabic to be placed in. Since the arabic is difficult for a non-arabic speaker to analyze and edit. Hannah will be editing that part.

-Jackson

What we're up to

Today the three of us met up to work on some editing. We did some preliminary stuff where Jackson is in charge of the first edit of Scene 2, I've got Scene 4 and Jake's on Scene 6. We'll all go through each other's preliminary edits and then each get an input but we figure this way it'll go quicker, we each get some free license but eventually each get a say. It's going to be rough doing the edit not only cos of the language but because of a lot of paraphrasing but it'll be fiiiiiiiiiiine.

Also, meeting with Rachel lots, set to film more on Friday. I know this is later than you'd want, but we're working around everyone's busy schedule and we can't ask too much of Rachel so it's the best we've got at this point. We're also setting up some time to do voice work with Joe and Jake and I are pursuing different offers of getting establishing shots of good ol' Maroc.

That's all for now

Cheers,

Hannah

Little update again!

Hi bloggie,

I met with Rachel for an hour this morning to rehearse and I will be seeing her for another hour on Wednesday night for much of the same (in French). I'm still tweaking the Arabrench and the Franglais but we shouuuuuuld be set to film the interrogation scenes on Friday!

Also, planning on meeting up with Joe to do the Arabic voice-over-ness within the next few days.

Cheers!

Hannah

Filming!!

Hi blog,

It's Hannah here again, just letting you know that the lads and I filmed this past Friday, Saturday and Sunday for a whole chunk of hours and it went really well! It took a lot less time than we thought, we think it looks great and Monique even said that ours was the most efficient project she's ever worked on. I also met with the girls to rehearse on Saturday evening to rehearse lines and motivations and blocking and such so that Sunday would go more smoothly....and it did.

The end.

--Hannah

Rehearsals this week

Hi again blog,

I met with Monique and Rachel for an hour on both Tuesday and Thursday to rehearse their scenes together. I have taught them the necessary Arabic phrases and we have gone over the French together. They are both doing really well adding depth to the characters but it's been a little bit of a process balancing out the characters so that Nour isn't too dominant and Layla too old-worldly. Oh well, we'll see. I think it'll be good. We start filming tomorrow.

--Hannah

Teeny-tiny update:

I called back one of the officers that Chief Hanna referred to us, but although he was actually really interested in the project and really great on the phone, his schedule doesn't look like he'll be free to film for two weeks. Looks like we might have to go with one of our back-up plans.

--Hannah

What Jackson Said

This weekend the three of us met up with the actresses a couple of times, firstly to go over the script with them in English and then we busted out the French/Arabic/English (aka Frarabish) script. The initial reading went well but all parties were really hesitant to whip out the cameras and film them at it.

On Sunday the three of us met and blocked out the action and the lighting for both scenes; that night we met with the ladies to do the Frarabish script.

I'm still waiting to here back from the Assistant chief and from my mate in Morocco as to whether he is going to come through for us with the footage---ahhhh hope soooooooooooo

--Hannah

Sunday (10/24)

Today the three of us met at our shooting location to arrange exactly how the scene will be blocked. Later that day we met with the actors again to rehearse the script in French.

-Jackson

Thursday (10/21)

At 7:00pm we all met with the two actresses to rehearse the script in English. They both did a fantastic job, and we think that they will have no problem with it. However, both of them needed more time to look over the script before the actual shooting began. After they left, the three of us stayed after to discuss the shots, storyboard, and to go over the tentative shooting schedule. We agreed that this weekend will be used to set up the shot using the camera and lights so that we will be completely ready to film when the actors are ready. This will ensure the actors' time is not wasted.

-Jackson

Rehearsing

Yesterday we all met with Rachel and Monique and had a read-through that went really, really well. Today we're going to spend more time with them giving them direction and back-story and helping them get adjusted to having their dialogue be in French.

After the rehearsal, we spent a good while planning out some shots and the look of the film some more.

I'm still translating. Bahhhhhhhhhhh.

I'm going to call back the Assistant Chief today and see what goes on with that, will keep you posted.

-Hannah

Plans, yay!

Hi blog!

Hannah again, just letting you know what's the dilly yo:

Met with Rachel Berger today and planned out days to rehearse this week and time slots for this and the next two weekends to film.

Meeting with Monique St. Cyr tonight to do the same although I know their schedules are compatible.

Calling back Assistant Chief Hanna tomorrow to follow up on Syrian-American actors.

Meeting with Joe Moussa tomorrow to translate the Arabic part.

Meeting with Aayesha and then with the costume shop to snag some clothes.

Still translating the French bit.

Met with Jake yesterday and came up with a bunch of ideas:

• Jake wants to emulate a bangin' sounding spinny camera thingie from Precious--scary, but I love it
• I want to do something a little Requiem of a Dream-esque with the split-screen/close-up/awesomeness of the lovers scene from the movie for scene 3 of our movie.
• Uhh....dang it, I left the paper in my other bag, but we had some other cool ideas, so....yeh.

Jake and Jackson are meeting up at the moment and then the three of us are getting together later.

That's all!

--Hannah

Another lil update

Still working on translating the script (I'm keeping an English version for reference) and working on getting the two girls' voices to sound more distinct. Funnily enough, it's a little easier in French-Arabic (aka Frarabic, my favourite language) but the translating's a hassle because in making it authentic-sounding, I'm ignoring the rules to both languages and I'm a lil worried about how hard it is going to be for the actresses to do. But it's still going to be the most awesome movie ever, so that's OK.

--Hannah

Just interesting:

I just found the video of the same-sex wedding in Morocco that was the sort-of-kind-of inspiration/catalyst for writing the original script. Huh. Funny, because there's no evidence of the actual case online, just this, so I thought I'd share:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oDEzy17sJo

Bye!

Hannah

Some things

On Friday, we called the Assistant Chief about either being in our movie or with helping scouting out the Syrian-American community in Allentown for people to either be in it or help with our character development/honesty of the syntax/structure of the interrogation scene--thanks again for that! He called me back yesterday afternoon and said that he's asking around on our behalf but he has to clear it with the Chief first. If that goes well (which he think he will--he was optimistic because of the civil rights aspect of the movie) then he'll ask about, both in the community and amongst his colleagues. He's a wee bit skeptical about being in it, but not 100% so, so we shall see.

Jackson's mate Joe (a senior here) is fluent in Arabic so I'm definitely hitting him up for help translating some of the script into Arabic (I'm proooooobably aka definitely going to ask your wife to check my French) and see if Joe wants to be in it.

I love the idea of the interrogation scene: If we have a single light flooding Layla on the chair, we can have the Policeman/Judge/Dude character circling her but never show his face. Joe's a little shorter I think to be too intimidating so maybe Jake or Jackson could be the body-in-shadow but we could use some extreme-closeups of Joe/judge-man such as with his feet walking on the dusty floor to add the general level of awesomeness of the scene.

I think it could be cool to play with sound: I want to have a whispering-y effect if Layla's voice praying as though to herself whilst she's getting interrogated and maybe some close-ups of her hands counting prayer beads.

I'm working on translating the script and when I see Jake tomorrow we'll share blocking ideas which we'll do again when Jackson gets back. By that point, we'll have our storyboard, kinda, not fully but definitely some.

Also, my mate in Morocco responded, he said he'd be glad to help but he's super busy for the next few weeks so I am going to see if I can persuade/badger/ask-him-super-really-nicely and see if he can help within the next two.

Phew. That's all!

Cheers,

Hannah

Update!

Hi blogg-blogg,
Last week, the guys came over and we chatted about the script some more; we want Nour to be more likeable and Layla less naive old-worldly to negate some of the colonialism-vibe that pops up sometimes.
We discussed starting the film with a close-up shot of Layla's feet running through Moroccan-y red dirt/broken pavement to give the film some location without having to fully recreate the country.
We also talked about an intro scene in a shop with one of the ladies buying a treat/something for the other on her way to the mosque. During the week we met up for lunch at ACI, this Middle Eastern shop and restaurant I know. I'm waiting to hear back from a lady I spoke with about using the space. Another Muslim friend of mine said that I can borrow her clothes for the ladies.
Auditions were OK-- only 8 or so people shows up but I have a couple of other mates who are actresses who I am trying to schedule individual times with so that the lads can see them. The chap who played the Judge in the play last year tried out for the same role, so that's an option. We're also trying to contact older Arab men that we know (0f) --wow that sounds sketchy, but it's not.
Aaaaanyways, more to come!

Hannah

Where you be, homie g?

We went on a mini-location-scouting-extravaganza around campus today and have tentative spots for where we can film the inside of the mosque and courtroom scenes. Oddly enough, both of these locations are in the PKT basement which could look the part with some help from lighting and redecorating more so than other spots (eg Hoffman House) which look a bit too classy. That's all!

Hannah

Goodbye my hot-tub, goodbye my friend...

Dear Bloggy-blog,

Last week, our Latex-inspired dream crashed and burned, so our latest film, Requiem for a Hot-tub, is well on its way.

Actually, we're going to be making a play I wrote a while ago into a movie-- I'm a little apprehensive cos it's sort of the play-that-won't-die as it's weird revisiting something I wrote Freshman year. It's nervous excitement though, although at our meeting yesterday at 2:30pm we spent a lot of time going over logisitics to be able to pull it off:

• We chatted about different people we know of Arab descent not only to act in the film but to also borrow their clothing or maybe house? We have a handful of folks to chat to so we're all in the process of getting in touch with them.
• We read through the play (aaaah) and decided that we maaaaayyyy have to change the judge to a dad if we can't get a courtroom and we thought of ways to make the scenes more visually interesting so that it seemed less wordy and dialogue heavy. We thought of having the characters have more visual tasks (like with the cigarette) or having a small child in the courtroom scenes to add to the tension (but that's just a maybe incase we can't get a kid).
• For the first scene, we also decided to make it less explain-y (not explanatory, just explain-y) and less theatrical and maybe just open with a scene of the policemen beating up Layla and just having her cry out in protest but not fully explain it.
• We also want to make her character a little less naive so Nour comes across less as the evil-foreigner.
• We chatted about building a portion of a set with help from some scene-shop people so that we can do some green screen with it.
• We're also re-formatting the script into CeltX proper format after this so that we can get down to really working out the overly-theatrical knicks.

Bye for now, Bloggy-blog,

Hannah

9/20/10

Hello there Mr. Blog,

Yesterday the three us us got together to discuss possible ways we could convey the story visually on screen. They are listed below:

- similar color tones for clara and nate

- revolving shot around the hot tub, one take

- shoot Clara and Nate together and pete by himself in different shots

- Pete as nail biter to show is incompetence

- Robbie licking his lips to show sexual power over Kourt

- POV shot from bushes, voyeurism

post made by Jackson

The Look as of 20/09/10

Hi blog,
Yesterday at about half 6, the group met over at Jackson's Estate and we came up with a few things as to what we want the film to look like:

• Nate and Clara will be shot in two-shot-shots (so many shots) to visually pair them as a couple whilst Pete will be shot alone, mostly framed with a space to the side of him, sort of symbolic of the girlfriend he is not with.


• These tropes will be used before they all get into the hottub where we will use a revolving shot where the camera will travel around the tub as the three mates chat. Think the cafe-scene in Deathproof


• Pete will be shot with the camera looking down at him whilst Robby will be shown in low angle shots to give him more power and prescence on screen. Pete will get a fake-out moment where we will film him in a low angle shot to kid the viewer that Kourt's going to go back with him (this will happen when Kourt accuses Robby of lying about his allergy) but as soon as she ditched Pete, he'll plummet visually and within the narrative. There goes that false glimmer of hope.


• Nate and Clara will be wearing clothes with similar colours/hues/tones and, just to mess with the viewer more and give 'em hope, Pete and Kourt will be wearing a similar colour palette. (We also noted that we need to make a change to the script and have Kourt bring Robby a swimsuit as part of her masterplan, and, on a different note altogether, we discussed alternative places that the characters could go to get latex gloves so that we could steer clear of the shopping centre/supermarket thing: some suggestions were sneaking into Kourt's neighbour's house or going to Pete's/Nate's/Clara's house and having one of their mums or dads be a doctor--we're still pondering that though, but back to the look!)


• We are also going to play with character quirks to contrast Robby's and Pete's sexual energy/prowess (or lack thereof): Pete will be a nail-biter to show a sort of nervous tick; this will serve to make him appear smaller on screen, also, and more closed off or inferior. The next idea (which we are working on the logistics of so it's not just flat out creepy) is to have Robby lick his lips-- not in a 'ooh baby' kinda way entirely, but kind of confidently and subconciously but still cognizant of the fact that he's going to be getting some underneath the fireworks. The idea is that he is sexually more present and aggressive and less nerdy than Pete. Robby will also blow smoke in Kourt's face which we will show in close-up.


• We discussed playing with the brightness of colours on screen--either making it unnaturally bright or maybe having the orange of Pete and Robby's hair pop against every other colour.


• We also want to play with some extreme close-ups with shots of Clara and Nate exchanging looks whenever Pete says something particularly lonely (there will also be cuter-couple-ier looks between the pair) and also a close-up of Clara moving her hand away from Nate when he makes the remark about gawking at Kourt's chest in the 10th grade.


• As for acoustics, the three of us each know several talented composers and musicians who have said that they will work with us and we're still discussing the feel of the music we want-- we have a range of rock-ier artists, folk singer-songwriter types and beatboxxers.


• We also discussed not ever showing the fireworks (cos we're students and couldn't pull it off so we don't want to go tacky) but visually implying them with wide-angle shots of the tub with the empty sky above it---foreshadowing the display that never comes)


• I still don't have a phone (grr...Virgin mobile) so, as a group, we've set up at least two weekly meet-up times outside of class so that we don't need to track each other down to work it out.


• We have spoken to a few acting-major friends of ours and have a tentative-pretty-likely actor for Pete and we're on a quest to solidify the other roles or at least write up a more appealing synopsis to go along with our casting sheet.

I think that's about it, I'm sure the lads will write up anything I've missed--bye for now!

Hannah

I'm not a ginger. I'm a redhead.

Hi Blog,
Today the dream-team met twice, first at 3pm then at 10pm. During our first meeting, we shared our character profiles and decided to cut the character of Jake/have Nate, Pete and/or Clara say his lines. We did a preliminary read-through of what we wanted to keep and change in the script so that when we met up in the evening we would have a better idea of what each other wanted.
At our ten o'clock meeting, we did a line by line read through of the script, divvying up and deleting the Jake character's old lines and making sure the humour was both appropriate and inappropriate enough for what we were going for. Whilst we were working on our casting sheet, we discussed tentative actors and actresses for a few of the roles and particuliarised what we wanted out of the other roles. We also had a chat about the hot tub we are going to use and made sure we had a back-up just incase that plan fell through.
All in all, bang on sort of day, we have a revised script and a casting sheet, go team latex.
Bye Blog,
Hannah

9/15/2010

Dear Blog, today we discussed the character profiles that would help us decide the type of decisions that they would make throughout the story. We decided to omit one of the character because we felt that he wasn't necessary to the story. Then we rewrote some of the dialogue in the beginning.