If I was to say I have a “fan favorite” film it would probably be this one. This is one of those films that people have talked to me about of whom I didn’t even realize they knew this film existed. I shot this piece as a final project for a revolutionary film class I took in the spring of 2013. I had taken many classes in the past with this same professor and I knew we would always have a creative final project at the end of the term. This was the third term in a row I had taken a class with her and in the fall term the video I made was annoying to put it lightly. The next term I had just recently purchased my own DSLR camera and I shot a parody on the characters Brutus and Cassius from The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. That video was a full little piece of work but at the same time it was just a simple project and mostly done for fun so there wasn’t very much appeal to it as far as I was concerned. After these two outputs I really wanted to create something strong for this final class.
During the early months of 2011 I went on a bit of a silent film-making binge, shooting about twelve or so short silent films, mostly of the slapstick comedic nature. But I did make one foray into a serious silent work. It was this film I called The Starlet. The idea follows a young, idealistic singing superstar who is loved the world over and is a household name in most cases, but in her personal life she is isolated and miserable. The film begins on her writing a break up letter to her boyfriend, another soul whose appeal for her is more because of what she is rather than who she is. She then takes off not knowing where to go, but finds herself stumbling onto an old church. Unknown to her, there is a worker inside who is also dealing with heartache after the love of his life left him a similar break up letter. Upon entering the church curiously she finds herself up in the sanctuary where she sees a small line of microphones and music stands, there for the churches choir. She steps to the head and grabs one of the mics. Standing there alone she feels more appreciation than she ever did in front of those crowds of hundreds of thousands of fans. Feeling this, she breaks down crying, capturing the attention of the worker there. The two meet and discover that despite her celebrity and his simple life, the fact that their worlds could not be anymore different, they find this connection in their loss.
The only real deviation in my new version from the first one is that the lead starlet, named Victoria, finds the strength to begin singing once she steps up to a mic and it is after her performance that the worker, named Shawn in the first version and Eric in the later one, makes his appearance and the two discover that they have a connection together. In this newer version I wanted it to become more clear as to the heartache and disconnect that Victoria feels. Therefore, in the new version she steps up to the mic and is so disheartened that she cannot sing a word. In her time of duress Eric makes his arrival and the two find their connection together. At the conclusion of the piece Eric asks Victoria if she will sing for him. She is dismissive at first but remembers that she is a singer at heart, no matter how many fans she is. In the final moments we see a more lively Victoria step up to the mic in front of her audience of one and prepares to belt out a performance when things cut to black.
The only solid requirement for this class project was it had to be connected in some way to one of the films we watched in class. During the first two weeks we discussed the origin of film as well as the period of silent film. During that second week we watched the 1927 classic Metropolis and more near the middle of the term we watched the Ingmar Bergman film The Seventh Seal. I combined the silent style of Metropolis along with a discussion we had in class about The Seventh Seal and the notion that every shot in the film seemed to be meticulously structured and structured a short silent film wherein every shot I listed was specifically structured in a dynamic way. To no surprise it quickly became one of my favorites after it was shot primarily because of the cinematic structure of the whole thing.
After shooting this film once back in 2011 I had already been dabbling with remaking the film. The idea had always been interesting to me and I definitely felt shooting it with an inferior camera did not do it justice. This film class provided a great opportunity to pursue that chance. Using my DSLR I was able to shoot a much more clear production which I chose to alter into a black and white film, obviously, but I did not want to try and age the film. I felt it would create an element of superficiality to the film since special effects in computer editing programs as far as trying to make a film look aged and older often only look somewhat realistic but more often than not come away looking marginally fake. I thus kept the quality of the film strong and let the soundtrack I used and the lack of natural sound to push its silent stature.
As mentioned above, I wanted to create a very meticulous shot list wherein every shot had significance and thus I would seldom use the same shot more than once but rather specific shots were created to capture very specific moments in the film. There were no coverage shots in this film, but rather every shot I captured was intended to cover one specific moment or period in the film. Rarely did I have a shot that exceeded twenty seconds or so. This shot structure made for a much more realistic and professional looking production from a strictly cinematic approach. If one watched a high grade Hollywood film they will notice seldom is the same shot used more than once unless the setting is a stagnant one, such as a collection of people sitting at a table talking. Over the shoulder, frontal and two-shot type scenarios, just to name a few, will probably be used multiple times in cutting together a scene where all the action is in one location and the characters are not moving around.
Coming to this understanding, the structure of the shot list in this film was a great departure for me and forever changed the way I viewed producing a shot list and creating the vision for a film in one’s mind. I feel when people first get into film and shooting production they think far too systematically. I’ve even worked with people who have been involved in film much longer than I am they are still so focused on the standard concept of getting wide shots, medium shots and close up shots and also making sure to get lots of coverage. This makes for rather bland productions wherein various different scenes we are subjected to a mix of only three or four different shots. Then cutaways are captured often to prevent a scene from becoming too stalemated from what is already known to me a small collection of primary shots. Therefore these cutaways are often captured with the purpose of preventing stagnation instead of being conceived as being just as important as these primary shots. Often then, in particular when one watches independent or student productions when a cutaway is interjected it looks forced in there or it has a jarring effect on the viewer that just looks artificial.
It’s convenient to look at film as just a mix of wide, medium and close up shots with lots of coverage. You get different distances and you get enough film to know that when editing comes to pass you will have enough to cut together each individual scene. It also consumes time filming this way, but if you really want a quality production that stands out over others you have to be willing to put in that extra time. Cutaways need to be conceived with every bit as much attention as any major shot. Not only that, but you need to know exactly when it is going to be inserted so as to recognize how that cutaway should be captured in terms of being a close shot or long shot, from above, below, side-to-side and so on. Each shot you edit needs to be able to flow fluently from one into the next and such just doesn’t happen that often with the old three-distance shot set-up. It’s a good route to use when you’re first beginning but your work is just going to look like every novice effort of every novice artist if you always continue in that direction without deviating and finding your own style. This was the first film that really forged that change in me in that for such a project I completely abandoned that traditional set up. And when all was said and done The Starlet had a more polished and professional look than anything I had done before it, and when I first watched it I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was about this film that made it look so different.
I was also very lucky in terms of the talent I managed to bring in for a project that I had roughly two weeks to throw together. For the lead role of Victoria I managed to get an actress named Cari who had just returned from college on the east coast after graduating with a major focus in the area of theatre acting. I had no idea how good she would be, and I didn’t have the time to audition and be picky (especially since I was already working endlessly on another major term project during that time as well) but seeing she had just finished school majoring in theatre I was prepared and comfortable taking the chance. From the first shot I knew I had found the right fit for the role. Cari had a great look for black and white film, having very light white-colored skin and dark hair which she curled slightly for the shoot. She also wore a black dress which, along with her hair, helped contrast well with her skin tone. Every single shot of her turned out fantastic, there was literally not a single bad shot. She was a vision on camera.
There was even a short sequence wherein, while walking from her home to the church where she met Eric she stumbled onto a fan who did exactly as expected, running up to her and begging for an autograph. Fortunately on the second day of shooting Cari brought along her sister who was able to step in briefly and take on the role for that.
And finally my future buddy Josh came in to play the role of Eric. I knew right away that we would get along well and even with the shortness of the shoot we became friends rather quickly. Josh was a perfect fit for the saddened Eric, performing as a counterbalance to Victoria. I would later go on to work as a DP on a piece Josh wrote later and now I have him in line to play the lead in my upcoming film My Inspiration. So we’ve managed to go on and do much more together.
Whereas the other major project I was working on for that term was one nightmare after another, shooting and cutting together The Starlet was a piece of cake. And even with the piece only halfway edited I found myself going back and watching through what I had edited so far because there was such an aura of beautiful about it. It almost psyched me out when the time came to shoot the second half of the film on the second day, but I kept it together and the second day of shooting was just as good as the first. The film cut together perfectly and even the five different audio tracks I used for music blended together well and fit in with the overall length of the film. Everything just came together. I don’t think I’ve ever had a film that flowed together so well and was also so simple and such a joy to cut together. And I got an A on it when I finally presented it to the class so obviously everyone in there liked it as well.
In the aftermath, with how popular it was among people I had worked on it with, I have often used The Starlet as a link to share with new talent I wish to work with who want to see examples of my prior work. Even while trying to get a professional actress from Los Angeles to take on a small role in a later film project I was shooting, which sadly didn’t work out due to scheduling problems, she was impressed by the project and was willing to leap into my other project. Still I often present this film when people want to see examples of my previous work because I think it’s a fantastic example as to my capabilities in the realm of cinematography, an area that I am only trying to become better and better at. The film certainly had an effect on my as far as what I was able to do and made my prospects for the summer and beyond incredibly high. While I had a few ideas that went south and it took me a while to get some projects rolling my next completed film, I Love You, I Love You, was structured in a style that was inspired by the way I shot listed and structured The Starlet, in which I wanted to use a wide variety of different shots and avoid a simplistic wide, medium, close up structure for the sake of a much more visually moving and pleasing piece of work. I have continued to try and structure my work more in this way ever since as well so you could say this film had a remarkable effect on my talent as a film maker and on the productions I have put together since then.
Film can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYCxkxk-jpU
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