Change

Good afternoon, film freaks! So over this weekend, I had a realization. A realization that would be unacceptable if it occurred later in production. Because what I realized was that I might need to redo the plot for the film opening. I still want to stay within the thriller comedy genre but the current plot I have drawn out in the storyboard has a number of problems.

First, the number of actors. Not only do I have a limited budget, but I have a limited timeframe to complete the project as well. Having a higher number of actors would cause the project to reach many delays through schedule changes, wardrobe changes, and the time on set would be greatly reduced as many of the potential actors around me are highly unmotivated. They would easily get frustrated after the first few takes and ask to leave home so I'd have to practice filming the shots beforehand before traveling onto the location to film the actors.

Another issue is the location itself. Shooting outdoors can allow the capture of often beautiful scenery but comes with unpredictable weather and almost continuously changing lighting. Moreover, a scene set purely in sunset would not allow much time for retakes and adjustments as the sun would eventually . . . well . . . set. Filming indoors would allow me to have much greater control over the lighting and set design as well as actually being able to see the LCD monitor on the camera.

This morning I had a new idea to help solve some of these issues. Stop motion. This medium allows for often much greater freedom in action sequences and the actors would be Lego mini-figures who wouldn't complain about an absence of food or the long filming hours like normal ungrateful actors would. However, to shoot a film at 24 frames per second would actually require 24 different pictures of slightly different positions of the figures just to produce one second of film. However, I'm still looking into this medium as an option so stay tuned for some tips and tricks on stop motion!