Background Info:

Over a year ago, I released my first short film – ‘The Other Side‘ – as part of my Video Writing/Directing course. Each student in the class had to produce a short film in time for Loyola’s Student Film Fest, where we’d be graded by the audience. This semester, I enrolled in the Intro to Digital Filmmaking course – it’s a step backwards from the more advanced Writing/Directing course because I wasn’t able to enroll in the Intro course in time, so I had to take these two classes backwards – where we also produced a short film by the end of the semester, this time with a group.

My group consisted of Geremiah, Lizzy, and Gabby, and we had to work together all semester on several short film projects before we were assigned our final film project. Our professor, Jim Gabour, specifically told our class we should have everything filmed by the start of Thanksgiving Break, since after the break we’d only have one week before the project’s due date (December 8). Thanksgiving Break came, yet we still didn’t do anything. The one thing we did have was a script written by Geremiah, but we hadn’t filmed a single scene or even come up with a plan of action – thus came the inspiration for this short film.

The Story:

During Thanksgiving Break, I knew I wanted to change the story for our short since the one Geremiah wrote was too ambitious, though it was good. Just looking at the time we had left, I couldn’t justify such a script. I wrote a script that was also ambitious, but it’d be much easier to film as it would require less sets, scenes, and actors. It involved an actor portraying “Fake Gabour,” who assigns his film class a group project to develop a short film. The main characters would be “Film Crew 6,” which consisted of Harry, Justin, Katy, and Taylor*. The entire plot involved this group discussing what to do about their project (due the next day) while in a study room. It was a bottle episode.

Like my first short film, this one would rely on mostly dialogue and conversational scenes. Based off of the films of Quentin Tarantino, which feature captivating dialogue scenes, I knew I had to make the conversations interesting, or else the entire film will be boring. The entire short film was of them thinking about what to do with their short film project. So meta, right? It gets even better. The group finally decides to do their short film on them trying to make a short film. When this scene ends, it pans out to show Fake Gabour watching that scene on his laptop, to which he confesses how amazing it is, as the group watches his reaction. This then pans out to show the Real Gabour watching Fake Gabour watching the final scene, with the Real Film Crew 6 (me, Geremiah, Lizzy, and Gabby) watching Real Gabour’s reaction. And Gabour cries tears of joy. End.

It was something fun, weird, and different. And it could accommodate our tight schedule. I wrote that on Sunday night before we came back from break, and my group agreed to meet up on Tuesday. Monday night, I couldn’t sleep because I kept thinking about the current script, and I just wasn’t completely satisfied. I was thinking about my favorite television show, ‘Community’, and how well they’re able to mimic different genres and film styles. In season three of ‘Community’, they did an episode called “Pillows and Blankets,” which revolved around a campus-wide pillow fight war. The entire episode was in the style of a Ken Burns Civil War documentary. And it was so damn well done. It’s one of my favorite episodes of the series.

I thought, “What if we tried to do that?” I watched the behind-the-scenes feature on the episode, and creator Dan Harmon spoke about how they were over-budget that season, so they knew doing a “documentary” format would reduce costs, as it would require no new sets, and a significant portion of the episode would be photographs. Not only would a Ken Burns documentary-style be visually interesting and different, it would save a lot of time. That’s what we desperately needed, and so it was decided.

That same night, I ended up writing a new script, which still contained some small portions from the original script, like the Idris Elba argument and the Ancient Egyptians controversy. But obviously, the final product ended up being less meta, though still very much meta.

Production and Post-Production:

My group went over the script Tuesday, I made a loose shot list (something I didn’t do for my first short film, big mistake), we shot for two hours Wendesday, and three hours Thursday. And finally, I edited the film over the weekend.

The Ken Burns style requires the use of keyframing, something I hadn’t done much of in the past, but it was really easy to learn. The style also requires very subtle music. One of Geremiah’s friends offered to score our film, but we didn’t have enough time to produce a rough cut for him to score to, so I found royalty-free music online.

Due Date:

The final project was due the following Tuesday. In class, we screened all six group projects. Each student graded all of the films, based on the overall quality of each film. The film with the highest average from the class would open the Student Film Fest the next day (Wednesday), as an out-of-competition screening.

Weeks before, when our professor told us the winning film in our class would be shown at the film fest, my entire group agreed that would be our goal: to be good enough to make the film fest. Getting an A would be secondary (lol). Thankfully, it all worked out and our entire class loved it enough to give our short the top grade.

Extra Notes:

• I must thank my friend Steph Catsoulis for helping us film. The few scenes with actual footage required the entire group to be in it, so we needed an extra hand to actually film us.

• One of my biggest pet peeves is having to film something where I had to also act/be in it. I really don’t understand how people can direct and star in films, because I really have to focus on one or the other. If I’m only directing, it’s less stressful and I can concentrate fully on directing. When I’m acting, it’s the same. When I’m doing both, both suffer. This became obvious when you look at scenes with actual video footage, as the framing was downright terrible. Our time crunch was also a contributing factor.

• Writing comedy is a lot harder than writing drama. It’s a fact. Comedy is all about timing and delivery. It has to be universally funny, something everyone can relate to and laugh to. My first short film was extremely serious, so it was a much different experience writing a comedy. I’m just glad that, for the most part, people enjoyed the jokes and laughed at how seriously we parodied the Ken Burns style.

• Special thanks to my friends Huyen Nguyen and AnhTri Huynh for letting me use their Canon 6D and tripod, respectively.

• Check out the commentary for my first short film here!

• I need to stop doing these last minute.

• Please watch ‘Community’.

*Harry (Styles), Justin (Bieber), Katy (Perry), Taylor (Swift)