Ryan+Chong+-+IB+Year+2+Journal+Entry+1


 * Journal Entry One: Introduce your approach to your film. What is the idea, and what are you contributing to it with your role. Refer directly to your planning documents. About 500 words.**

My main idea? I started out with the idea of making a film that helps raise awareness to climate change. This was before the assignment was deployed. It was simply my passion for film that lead me to this. I had the idea circulating in my head and a small text file with some notes. I went around asking people for opinions – parents, friends of parents, classmates, friends of classmates, best friends, etc.. I came across one friend who asked me this: “What do you think is the source of the problem for the lack of awareness to climate change?” I gave a thought. The problem doesn’t really come from people not knowing. A lot of people actually know that we are the cause of global warming. So what is really the problem? It’s the fact that some of us seem to be attached to the idea that there are things in the world that will be the same forever, or at least in our lifetime. There is stability of course, but stability is not definite. This was my theme. My audience? The Chinese public. I set my film in Chinese. Research tells me that Chinese civil servants are exceptional people that wish to earn a stable life. They have lots of potential, but when they pass the national exam, which has a pass rate of 20:1, they end up at a desk job where they do the most menial tasks. It feels like a waste of potential. So then finding a way to raise awareness to the world not being definitely stable, I decided to use this as my theme for the film. I decided to take on all the roles of production for this film so that I would not run into scheduling problems with other students as I have done in the past.

I started with a screenplay, as that should be my first step to structure my story. The initial idea was still raising awareness to climate change, so I brainstormed some symbols that the audience may be able to attach to. I created characters. Having established characters, I was able to change my setting when I felt that the current one was not suitable for a 7 minute film. The initial idea of an the character getting fired from the civil servant position in his boss’ office, going home to think things through, and then attend a college reunion. As you can see, I started with the idea of using three or more locations to film, but finally narrowed it down to one location. After considering how the reunion would be the highlight of the story, thought of various places to film for the reunion, from having it in a hotel to down in a private wine cellar. In the process, I realized for the scope of my film, and time frame that I have to work on the film, turning the college reunion into a meeting between two people would be more convenient. It would also pack a harder punch as audience members may be able to keep track of the story better without having to worry about a brigade of characters.

For many days, as I went out to have lunches and dinners with various people that my parents meet over the social network, I have come to narrow down the screenplay bit by bit. In that process I have also found people interested in helping act. I will soon finish my storyboard and begin workshopping the scenes with my actors this following weekend. I feel very fortunate and grateful to have some adults who are interested in helping in act in this.


 * Journal Entry Two: Read your selected book. I'm not going to insist that you read the whole book in a week. Skim the parts that don't seem relevant. Focus on the parts that are interesting to you and will help you think about how you can push your film forward. **

The first time I directed a film was making a music video, and that was directing my family members, which should count as being easier than working with people who I have not known for as long of a time. Prior to that, I was only giving suggestions in group project, never really having a defined role. Even after that first time direct, it was another group project during the Shanghai Student Film Festival (S2F2) where I worked in a group for the 8 hour film challenge. Even then there were no real roles. We won the competition anyways. I actually hope that this time it won’t be that different of an experience. Everyone should have a say about the film even if we are assigned roles. I remember doing research on Stanley Kubrick, and part of that research revealed to me that Kubrick was always open for ideas. He would hand a script to everyone ranging from the actors to the technicians to the cleaners. I may have the final say on what happens with the filming, but being able to have everyone pitch in should increase my odd in making a great film. It’s not about how much money I will make or what grade I will earn. I just want to enjoy making an enjoyable film. That said, I still need some help with knowing the best way to direct. I don’t want to start offending anyone on the first day of shooting, am I right? So I picked out one book to do some skimming with: //Changing Direction//. I can see that in this book, I will be able to receive some tips on how to be hospitable to my crew. I will be able to guide them through the stress of filming by using exorcises that are provided in the book. One such example is the relaxation exercise. Considering how all my actors will be adults, I believe stress is a large part of their lives. Being a considerate human being that I am, I wish to be able to allow my crew to work happily and with as least stress as possible. That saying that there needs to be some sort of stress to keep the filming going. I hope that even if the end product is not perfect, the experience with the crew would be a blast.


 * For Journal Entry 3, your first job is to locate your own resources and post them for your peers and posterity, here. For future reference, that page is made available off the main page. **


 * Rules: **


 * 1) You must find three different resources. These can be videos, tutorials, interviews or articles.
 * 2) **They must be directly related to your role and placed in the appropriate category.**
 * 3) They must all be credible resources- either from professional filmmakers, film magazines or organizations, or //credit// those sources.
 * 4) **You may not double up with what someone else has posted. List your name in parenthesis after the post.**

Write Journal Entry 3 (about 500 words) on how you could apply the advice in these resources.

Last year while doing some research on Stanley Kubrick, I learned that when Kubrick was directing a film, he would create very close relationships with them. These relationships would last the duration of the film production, and as soon as the production was complete, Kubrick will not keep in contact with the crew members unless he needed them to perform for other films. One thing to take away from that though, it that when directing, one must treat actors, heck, all of the crew, especially nice. This point is reenforced by Dan Pink's talk at the RSA, when in the industry, more end-game reward will bring higher performance, while in the creative fields, employers get more out of their employees when they provide the reward upfront and then have the employees do their work. It is like the difference between going to a bar that keeps tabs and going to a supermarket to get yourself a 6-pack of beer - pay now or pay later. It was proven that more useful things came out of paying the employees and letting them party than have employees work for their reward. Then I realized that directing had to be more than just letting actors do their thing, there needed to be some sort of inspiration for the actors before they can see the whole image. I found the article //Directing is the easy part// from the L.A. times. This article featured an interview with various directors (David Fincher's Facebook film "The Social Network," Ben Affleck's crime story "The Town," Tom Hooper's historical drama "The King's Speech," Darren Aronofsky's ballet tale "Black Swan," Lisa Cholodenko's family comedy "The Kids Are All Right" and Ethan Coen's western "True Grit" (directed with brother Joel)). One director said that at times, you have to get so close to the crew members that you become their free therapist, but then there are better time where the crew memeber just knows from experience what to do. There will be conflict at times, which I am afraid of, but reassure myself it’s all part of the experience. Everyone will have his/her fears from time to time. The trick is to not be stubborn and adapt to the situation. As the directors of the article mentioned, there will be no time where the crew will work to the vision you see, and that is why there needs to be communication between the crew and the director. They say that the director should not dictate the actors choices as this would leave the actors confused. It is always better to work with the agricultural model where one provides the necessary environment for something to grow. That’s what I believe I should do as a director, and that I should allow the actors to feel the characters of the script and translate that into their own lives. A Chinese television show actress told me personally once that a good actor is one that can perform by linking their emotions from previous experiences and merging them with what the character of the story feels. She gave me this example: In a scene where the character loses someone they love, the actor need to either reenact the emotion that occurred when someone they knew died, or image a situation where their loved one did die. I believe if I will have trouble leading the actors, I will instead just give them suggestions on where they might be able to pull emotions from.

As a director I should also consider from a producer’s point of view, mentioned by the article //I want to be a Film Director// from the London Academy of Media Film & TV. This means that other than being able to present a great film, and work with actors and nurturing their potential, I need to also consider the budget, and how to schedule filming times. There’s a little bit of optimization in there, I believe, that relates to calculus, but I won’t get into that now. The article relates the the Nash Equilibrium, I believe. I have the consider what is best from myself and what is best for the others and they have to do the same for me when planning out the budget and scheduling filming times.


 * Journal 4: **
 * Please look at two more resources that others have posted in the Production Portfolio page and write your last preproduction journal on what you've learned and how you can integrate those ideas into your film. **

I am glad to be reminded what techniques editors use as they cut, and at the same time, what kind of shots I need in order to create the cuts. Shoot Like An Editor: 7 Tips That Will Make You A More Valuable Shooter from [] mainly emphasized shooting in a way that makes it easier for the editor while Video Editing and Shot Techniques: Study of jump cuts, match cuts and cutaways from New Media Right dot org. emphasized more on the techniques on cutting that where covered last year. After not being in contact with film editing and film making for such a while, these videos reminded me why I loved film in the first place. It was the magic of telling a story through cutting footage taken from different angles and creating meaning through aesthetics. Then it boils down to how much footage and coverage I have. I can have one piece of footage and cut it a million ways, but at the end of the day I only have one piece of footage. If I obtain more coverage, as mentioned in the beginning of EDITING: 'THE SOCIAL NETWORK' [] I may be able to make a greater film than just have great editing on just one footage taken only at one angle –– one master shot.

For Journal Entry 5, please comment on your experience filmmaking up until the Rough Cut was presented. This should be no less than 300 words.
 * Journal 5: **


 * Include explanations of how you've adapted your knowledge of film conventions into your crew role.
 * Include explanations of how you've included any inspiration or emulation of a film or aesthetic technique into the film through your role.
 * Cinematographers and directors may want to use storyboard to shot comparisons to include in their discussion.
 * Scriptwriters should include any changes that were made to the script, and explanations.
 * Editors and Sound Designers should explain what was shot, and include notes on what they plan to do with those shots in post production.
 * Discuss any changes that you made based on on-the-spot collaboration or how you found creative solutions based around limitations. For example, if an actor didn't show up, what did you to solve the problem? If someone forgot a prop, what did you use instead?
 * What challenges came up, and how did you deal with them?

Production Journal They say you cannot take shortcuts in life, well I say of course you can! I did at least. To give a little background on what I mean, I want to say that: With lots of money, and the know how, working on a film by yourself is a piece of cake, given the time to grow the ingredients by yourself and figuring out the recipe from scratch, and then finally getting to the baking process where you mess up and have to start all over again, or something like that. If you work by yourself, that’s the trouble you have to go through. What happened in my case was that I wanted studio quality audio recording for my soundtrack for this film. If I had the money, I would build myself a stage, buy a grand piano, purchase state of the art recording devices, and computer hardware and software that manages these recordings. The things is though, I am not working by myself, even though I don’t have a crew. The key to this mystery is having friends. With friends, you don’t need to own anything, because friends will likely be willing to lend you things, because they trust you. I have come across many friends in the process of pre-production, and productions, and post production. I better record all the names of the people who helped me so I can create a special thanks list before I forget!