Aesthetic Part Two: Production Notes

This is completely new for me, having to make something with some semblance of planning beforehand, moreso than an idea or inkling of what would look good on film. I mean, I freakin' wrote two aesthetic pieces. This is all very incredible. Oh, I've written scripts and stuck to them before, but they simply don't count in this context. This is original in that I'm transferring one piece of media into another. Which I assume I've also done with a script and what not... dammit, none of how this was done is new; I just relied on old, bad habits. This is how I did it:

1. Frame
   
2. Point
   
3. Shoot
   

Just kidding. I had a good idea of shots in my head, and wrote them down. (I'm a terrible drawer, and would never make it in Art+D, unfortunately, without that skill). I had a lot of hyperbole and metaphors in my writing, and I mean a lot. Just read the third paragraph of my piece and you'll see just how elaborate it can get. So I cut those out and framed a lot of shots that I feel would set the tone and then drive the narrative, yet still provide some aesthetic contexts:

• Water boiling. I took shots of me turning it on and off, but the lighting was inconsisent with me pouring it, so didn't use any of it. Otherwise wanted to provide unnecessary amounts of detail relating to the preparation of a cup of tea, you know, like you're procrastinating a really long time on it.
  
• Water pouring. This I got and looked great. Unfortunately, steam doesn't show up unless it's opaque, and because it's apparently transparent in reality, it's gonna look that way on video. It was supposed to be hot, as if my room and the viewer is getting more humid because of it.
  
• Making tea. I used a shotgun mic for this and many of the computer images. I wanted a satisfying rustle to come up on video and the quiet dunking of a bag of tea in water. I wanted this and the other shots to be close-up and with reasonable amounts of detail.
  
• Tossing away of tea wrapper and other miscellaneous trash. I basically put the camera on a tripod directly above my receptacle, balled up pieces of newspaper and other trash I had and dropped it from above the camera. Unfortunately a tripod leg was in the shot and I couldn't use it.
  
• The clock on my computer. It provides a good context for time, especially since it ticks off seconds. I had a lot of fun reseting my computer's clock rather than having to wait about 7 hours.
  
• Framing of the computer. There were multiple angles for this, one that is objective, neutral, others that suggest an overbearing presence (one of my favorites was putting a piece of white cardboard behind the computer and taking it from a low angle), others that suggest a point of view and that the subject is looking from a very skewed angle with his head down, others that focus on details, as detailed below:
  
• Framing of the keyboard. Again, I had a variety of keyboard shots, both hands, one hand, focusing on one finger and one letter, etc. I was really limited by how close I could get to the keyboard. So I kept the blurred out shots, and thought that they would provide a convenient thread for progression: as the night goes on, the subject gets more and more tired, and simply can't see straight anymore.
  
• Framing of the Word document. Again, same as the computer and the keyboard, I wanted a variety that would suggest progression, first a broader shot, then something that focuses on a few lines typing, then one line, and at varying levels of clarity. I also played around with the built-in dictionary and thesaurus, a favorite pastime of mine when I don't know what to write and decide that certain words could be . . . wordier.
  
• Framing of the iTunes window. I wanted it to be clear that it was iTunes I was playing music from, so focused on the change from a Word window bar to an iTunes window bar, the iconic control buttons, and scrolling through my massively long music collection. If you look closely, you'll see I actually select the song I chose to use in post-production (more on that detail later). Again, the overbearingness of and overreaching abilities of computers these days.
  
• Framing of sickness. I wanted to suggest the subject was sick, so I shot my hand pulling tissues out of a kleenex box. Because I wanted the satisfying rustle that it would intonate, I put my shotgun mic by the box, but only noticed in post that you could see it, ever so slightly. I would solve this and another problem with that later. I also filmed a zooming shot of some medication scattered across my desk and my hand picking some up. The detail was reasonable but not so reasonable that one could ascertain whether it's adderall (gasp, college kids abusing prescription drugs?) or harmless pseudoephedrine.
  
  The way I scheduled things, I took care of what I could by my lonesome, knowing full well that I cannot and will not film myself and that any of my friends I pull out of their room to be my subject would only do so for about 15 minutes and with a reasonable amount of direction. So in exchange for some Pocky sticks, I coerced my friend Ben Campbell into being my poor bastard of a college student-subject for fifteen minutes and fifteen minutes only. My main motivation for him, a self-described thespian and improvisationalist, was "frustration" which he initially took as "sexual frustration." Once I sat him down at a computer, he seemed to get it. To put him in the mood and to simulate conditions I went through, I put the song I framed as playing on my iTunes on repeat and shouted motivations at him:
  
  
• Framing of a relatively focused subject. Just as the eye would see it, someone in front of a computer, sipping at a travel mug full of tea, maybe typing something ocassionally, but otherwise undaunted by the task ahead, focusing on the waist up
  
• Framing of bodily details and appendages. I took great liberty to film his mouth, eyes, and hands in various positions and stages of action. They are, after all, the windows and the machinery of the soul...
  
• Framing of a sick subject. This involved him blowing his nose and throwing the tissue to the side. What I didn't realize when taking this was that I had told Ben to move the kleenex box, but as I would find out, I couldn't use the shot of the kleenex box anyways, so eventually I just filmed myself reaching into a desk drawer and pulling out tissues from there. It also involved him popping pills, which were just cepacol lozenges, of which I got him chewing, which looked good out of focus.
  
• Framing of an increasingly frustrated subject. Eventually, everbody has to learn sometime. Naturally, I started out with him acting with his whole face, literally blowing off some steam and getting on with it. This is in contrast to the starkly-angled shots of him putting his face down, from above and below. Kind of a "oh how the mighty fall" moment, juxtaposing the two. My favorite shot of his frustration, however, is when it's on the desk at a skewed angle looking upwards towards the screen and his face is partially obscured by it, again suggesting the presence it has on him.
  
• Framing of a subject who has removed himself to regain some sort of sanity: Originally it was wandering the hall, him doing the "what the fuck am I doing" dance, but I chose something more simple in the time given, slumped up against an interior wall, rubbing the face, scratching the head in a manner of thought or apprehension or complete surrender. I let him act that one out.
  
• Framing of someone who has more or less regained some sanity. The action in these shots, rather than the framing drives it, as he picks his head up and starts to type again.
  
• Framing of the counter-argument to that last shot, where the final bit of frustration is realized. Again, something relatively neutral, as if they're level opponents in some metaphorical match between machine and computer. He loses, of course, but not without slamming the computer lid down first. Score, zero, zero.
  
• Framing of the subject asleep. Basically medium and close-up shots of him sprawled out on his bed, or in a fetal position, mouth slack-jawed, not visibly breathing, still dressed. Taken in both low-light and lit conditions as if he either fell dead asleep or fell asleep with some foresight, i.e. turned off the light.

So I got a lot done with Ben in fifteen minutes. It was quite good, seeing as how I took a raw 7 or 8 minutes worth of him, rather than the hour and half or so I spent getting twenty minutes of something visibly decent.