Filming day 1

Today was the day I finally start shooting for my film. After confirming with my actresses and location, I decided to shoot the “Finding the parking space” scene. This was my first time to handle an entire set. Excitement and nervousness were raging in me, but i knew deep down that i was born to do this!

This is my script for the scene:

Forgive my horrible drawing skills, but this was the basic storyboard that I followed.

Throughout this process, I decided to vlog about my filming experiences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU2oH7SvQks&feature=youtu.be

Game Review. Jimbo- Adrian Yap

I truly enjoyed playing Jimbo, by Adrian Yap.

The idea is simple, but the game is very challenging and entertaining. I was saddened to discover that the game developer has not added more levels.

I like the graphics, the way the story was told. It kind of reminded me of Ratatouille. The sound design was great! The music matched with the theme very well.

Things I wish could be improved in the game.

– The timing of the first level is way  too fast. Since it is the first level ideally it should be easy.

– I believe that the second level should be replaced with the first level,  although the   map is larger in the second level , there is less obstacles and more time. This will allow the players to feel the excitement in the first level of  the game, without getting dismotivated to continue to the seond level.

Belladonna

Lyn was talking to me today about belladonna (a really strong poison),then she said something that really captured my attention, she told me that women in the Middle Ages used to use this poison as an eye drop in order to dilate their eye pupil to make them look more attractive!!!!

That shocked tremendously that I had to do my research to understand more, it turns out that “Belladonna” is Italian for beautiful women.

I couldn’t believe that people would go THAT far to be or look beautiful. Will society ever give up on judging people on how beautiful they are!  Then this thought hit me, everyone nowadays blames the “media” for setting up a bad example on beauty and misleading young adults with over perfectiont bodies and looks, but is it really the “media”? Or is just the nature of humans, think about it this way, they didn’t have “Media” in middle ages didn’t they? Why would their women go that far to look beautiful? Who set up the example of beauty in the era ? The simple answer is easy it is society! It has always been society and it will always be society! We are the one who set what is beautiful and what is ugly, what is acceptable and what is shameful, call me old fashioned but I am a true believer in inner beauty. I am not will to risk my life and my health to look “Society” beautiful! I would rather be the same old me, but at least the original copy.

This post is maybe more serious than the other posts I usually write, but this issue has been bothering me for a really long time now.

 

The poison bottle that is designed to fit in one of the scenes in our movie

Have a good day!

Filming design (Movie process)

As I mentioned in my previous video, this is more than just a movie, our research for this project gave us a whole new look on making movies. We made sure that we put as much details to the design of the scene as we can! It has been a great learning experience for me. Set design requires attention to the smallest tiniest aspect of the space. Today’s scene was a good example of detailed set design. Of course, before setting the set you need to understand the era, fashion, tools, life in general in that era. Our movie requires a lot of attention to the “Era” that is why we are very careful in setting up what year we are working on. For today’s scene we did the 1985 year scene. I had the great chance to get into a Mercedes today. It was a lot of fun. We arrived at the park with lyn and her dad. The park was perfect for the scene as it resembled the perfect English autumn. Leaves were on the flower, it was a bit cloudy. We were very careful to the way the car stopped and the location of the car. We even custom made the car’s license plate. It turned out that you can download different car plate numbers font style online and add them to your Microsoft word. I was very pleased when I found the suitable font for the scene. When we arrived in that park we met Hannah! Lyn was dressed up for the scene. I thought she looked great! I helped with the scene setting and Hannah filmed lyn’s scene. Then we headed to Hannah aunt’s house where we continued filming. I must say I had a great day filming today, it was really interesting being able to play with spaces and objects and work with a fantastic dedicated group!

England 1985

Look at the plate design!!

You will understand this when you watch the movie 😉

Lyn was doing the scene and this lady kept looking at us strangely

Lyn enjoying the scene 😀

Thank you for reading!!

Link

A video about making/progress of the short movie

The link for the trailer:

I wanted to do something different for my blog so I decided to make a video!! The reason why i uploaded the video on another blog is because I wasnt able to upload videos on wordpress 

I hope you like it! 🙂

Filming in a tunnel (Scene from Elixir)

Shooting in a tunnel

In acting, you need to take risks and shooting in a tunnel was one of them. On Friday we headed to the tunnel where the  U turn to Taylors university is. The scene was filmed by Lyn, the hair and makeup was done by Hannah and Kelly. Me and Dzaqui were the actors in this scene we started shooting about 5 in the afternoon and we finished at about 9 o’clock at night. It was a long shoot but nevertheless it was fun!

Setting: We decided to use this tunnel because it is dark and mysterious, and it provides the perfect lighting for our shoot. As the sun goes down the lights inside the tunnel are switched on which gives a perfect light for the scene. We also hanged our “Wanted posters” on the wall of the tunnel to compliment our story line.

In this scene, “M” meets Dzauqi after accidently pumping into him on the road causing her hair pin to fall on the floor, Dzauqi follows M and gives her the broken hair pin, they start a conversation and “M” gives her phone number to him. Later in the second scene M meets Dzauqi again and their meeting end up pretty badly. The “Hair pin” Is very important in this scene because it resembles one of the main elements in the movie. I can’t reveal too much so you will understand what I am talking about once you watch the movie.

So far, everything is going well. We are still shooting some scenes. As I mentioned in the beginning of this project that I work with a group of perfectionists which makes it a whole lot more interesting to work because their ideas are simply fantastic!

Here are some photos from the day of shooting!

Posters

Photo credits go to Hannah and Lyn

Getting ready for the shoot

Kelly’s excitement’s jump

Our videographer!!

Hannah inspecting the setting in the tunnel

Sean decided to stay silent..

Dzauqi getting ready for the shoot

Have a great Febuary 😀

On acting.

After finishing the trailer, i am now feeling very optimistic about the movie. I have a lot more clearer vision of exactly how to act each and every scene i am involved in,I have also been working a lot on developing my acting skills by practicing different emotions and body actions, following some of my experiences with monologs and theater. In order to improve i would give myself a situation (anything i like ) and act it out. I also record myself sometimes acting to see what is going right and what is going wrong. Every movement matters when you act,because you are basically communicating to the audience by using your body gestures. Gestures matters, i learnt that in figure drawing class as long as there is a gesture as long as there is a mean of communication. Moving on, worrying about not putting much effort is always an obstacle when you are making something on a major scale, not many people might think that what we are doing is major, but i believe it is.It takes a lot of effort and details to film a scene. Looking at actors who inspire me greatly and watching their movies is also helping me with my thinking process. For an example: Oliver Ackland is my greatest inspiration. This actor is extremely talented. When i watch him act i understand all his emotions in a situation, every facial expression he conveys tells the story behind the scene, he once said that before he starts acting on any project he gives his charecter an extreme attention and he tries to live up his character’s life, in order to to fully understand what his charecter is experiencing. He use self reflection in order to create a believable story.

Female actresses like Kristen Stewart also inspire me to push my limits and experience all sorts of emotions.

I just have a quirky obsessions with actors who play around with the camera by their eyes. Eyes are very powerful tools, they are the doors to one’s imagination.

Norman Bates ( Freddie Highmore) from Bates motel, has the power to give the most mysterious terrifying psycho look to the camera, helping the story line greatly.

Eyes can trick the audience and bring all their attention to the storyline.

I think my passion for acting is only getting bigger, It is my greatest escape.

Have a great day!

Marwa

Examples:

Oliver Ackland (WAsted on the young)

Kristen Stewart ( breaking dawn part2 )

    Kristen stewart (breaking dawn part 2)

Freddie Highmore (bates motel)

 Freddie Highmore ( Bates motel)

Oliver Ackland ( wasted on the young)

Posters

It was a crucial part for us to prepare “Missing posters” for our movie. You will find out why, when we will post the full movie.

Here is an example of the posters, we tried to make them as real as possible. 

Filming process and trailer.

Filming has been going great. We managed to finish making the trailer and we are now working on shooting some scenes for the movie.

We tried to make the trailer as catchy as possible and we included all the important elements and “Cult” that we are trying to showcase in the movie.

The eye make up done with the help of Kelly and Hannah gave a dramatic effect, just as we needed it to give. Why focus on the eyes? Well, for one thing eyes can speak to you with just one glance, and the other…oh well no spoilers, SORRY! 🙂

Credit for all the photos goes to Voon lyn.

Then we have the most tricky part of the film which is the walking- running part.

 

Then we continued with our cult

 

Overall, I think that filming process is going brilliantly well. I am very glad that I am able to finally do something that I enjoy which is “Making movies”.

 

First day- Filming trailer.

When the camera starts recording, when lights are on, when everything goes silent and spotlights are headed towards you, you can’t help it but your heart race with excitement, and all your problems will be forgotten and you will just let go and focus on doing a good job. That is what happens to me whether I am the actor, director, writer or just simply helping out in a set.

Our first day of filming went fantastically well! I am working with an amazing group who truly understand all concepts of shooting a movie and I am learning a lot!

We filmed a big part of our trailer, and we are moving forward and planning to film more scenes tomorrow on Monday.

Here are some of the pictures from the “Noir scenes/ the makeup scenes”

Credits to Ang Kelly and Hannah Wong for the awesome hair and makeup.

Credit to Voon Lyn for taking the time and effort in filming and taking these pictures

Makeup before shooting.

Intense close up scene.

Have a great day!

And happy December 😀