Documentary Pitch

Documentary Pitch

Staff: Taylor Wegmiller (DP), Kyle Stapp (Editor), Travis Grable (Director).

Location: His office, background must contain computer hardware to accentuate his occupation.

Concept: We take a venture into the career of Seth Douwsma, a professional web designer at edencreative.co who (with his business partner Zach Grantham) will accept clients both public and private. They exchange information/details over the web (or in some cases phone) with the people until the final product is online and the client is happy. We’ll be asking him what exactly got him interested in this field, his education, when he opened for business, what the ups and downs are, either with some unruly customers or disasters due to typos, what he’s proud of the most and so on.
At least one example of his projects should be shown, and him working on script to serve as B-roll while he narrates his objective, how the average day goes, and how it feels to ‘work at home’. Another possible B-roll would be a dramatization of a possible ‘snag’ with a hard-to-impress client, if applicable and only if in everyone’s best interest.

Tagline: Designing and developing beautiful work to build relationships & make a difference.

Estimated Length: 4-6 minutes

Gear:  Canon Vixia HF R500 camcorder

            Sony Alpha a3000

            68” Dolica Tripod

            Reflector Disc

            Reflector Umbrellas

            Fluorescent Lighting

            External Microphone

            Backup external microphone

            Clapboard

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Script (Questions)

For best results, for editing and contextual purposes these must get answered with complete sentences, whenever applicable.

Could I get your name please?

Where did you go to school, college?

What is your degree?

What was your inspiration to take this course as opposed to engineering, science, or music?

Since graduation what have you done?
(I see you have your own business and a partner).

What is your role here and Mr. Grantham’s?

How’s it like to work on your own time?

And what would you say are best/worst parts of the typical collaboration with a client?

Your webpage is very simple yet effective. Who came up with the name, Eden Creative and what’s the story/meaning behind it?

What would you say is your biggest accomplishment here, whether it’s having started a business of your own (not an easy feat) or maybe it was completing a very big project…?

Some of our viewers are in the progress of becoming web designers themselves; any advice for them, something they ought to really know that a book can’t tell them perhaps?
.
.
.
The above questions are starters. During the session, one answer from the interviewee may stimulate an impromptu question leading to more information.

Phrases & Script

INT. SHOPPING MALL.

Two men and a woman sitting at a table outside a coffee shop. Early morning.
Various shoppers are looking around, some line up in front of some stores, others line the walls, resting their eyes. Christmas music plays over the P.A system.

One of the men tilts his head hard left & right, cracking his neck.
“Ah,” he sighs in relief, “what have you got on your list to get for, Lins?”

The woman, Lindsay, who was staring off into space snaps out of her trance.
“Television for my mother. Her Zenith finally burnt out. When I’m not there visiting the only thing keeping her company is her cable TV. What about you, Scott?”

Before he could respond, the other man cuts in.
“Not that Orion one you saw in the Black Friday ad.”

Lindsay, who was picking up her coffee cup, puts it back down. “Because the only three the Radio Shack has will be the first thing to go? Fat chance I’ll grab one. I know, Harry.”

“Ah-ah, no. It’s one of those many things that are sold exclusive to this shopping season. They’re made from dismal parts and aren’t worth turd pie. Spend the extra dollar for something less likely to catch your mother’s home on fire.”

Scott finishes the last of his drink, leans back to throw it in the bin behind him then speaks. “Charlie Brown was and always will be right, Christmas has gone too commercial. It starts when it wants and ends immediately after midnight. Until then it’s ‘gimme, gimme. I want this, I want that’. The decorations are out in stores around the same time Halloween rolls around.”

Harry and Lindsay stare at him with blank expressions as he continues.

“Getting time with my kid and the missus and actually bonding is good for me but for good measure I get them both a little something, even if it’s not something on their wish list. New phone upgrades, though the ones they have now do everything except butter their toast. My daughter wants a…”, he hesitates, “…selfie stick. Bound to be something more fitting for a girl in one of these toy stores.”

“Wh-what, uh..”, stammers Lindsay.

Harry answers her implied question. “A ‘narcissistick’ is what I call ‘em. They’re essentially just a telescoping stick with a grip on the end for a phone or anything with a camera on it. [Imitates attaching something to a prop and holds up a peace sign]. Do-do-do-do-do… and they do the duck face, peace sign and whatnot. Self-indulgent people, especially young women tend to upload like a thousand pictures to Facebook or some crap like that… yeah, a day.”

Scott looks at his watch. “Few more minutes ‘til seven and the stores open. Really starting to get packed in here.”
All three looked around. Masses of people were huddling in front of steel gates, waiting for the clerks to raise them up and let people in to get started early shopping for the holiday season.

“So much tech these days. This was unheard of back in ye old days, yeah? I remember asking for Tinker Toys and model cars to assemble. Now it’s tablets, phones, whatever,” says Harry.

Lindsay closes the ad magazine she was reading and drops it in the center of the coffee table and says, “I suppose I can buy one online anyway. It wasn’t in my best interest because risk of damage and all. I’mma go look around. Maybe get something for my place. Electric blanket or thicker comforter. I’ll see you two … here, in an hour?”

Harry and Scott nod as she gets up from her chair and walks off in the direction of a Sears.

“Why the advanced stuff for the wife and kid anyway?” Harry asks.
Scott takes a pouch of Mini Muffins out from his coat and digs in.
“It keeps them happy. Assuming so.”

Harry sighs deeply, removes his glasses and rubs an eye.
“Y’know that’s really been bugging me, technology in a way connecting us but in many ways driven us further apart than ever before. People sometimes talk to each other if they’re not staring at a screen, but even then they’re not really communicating.”

Scott finishes his pouch and crumples it in his right hand, faces Harry, who put his glasses back on. “Then you’re not getting anything while you’re here? Some tools maybe?”

“I’ll be hav—“, Harry starts but is cut off by a chime over the P.A.
(BREAK) Almost simultaneously, the gates of all the stores slide upward or swing out. Hordes of people begin filing in just about every one of the hundred stores on all 3 levels in anticipation to get a good deal on merchandise.

“… having a look around,” he continues. “My dad and I have been on mostly good terms this year so I’ll get him a little something. Maybe a robe and pajama set. I go over there in the summertime and he’s got the heat turned on to ninety. Now…”

Harry looks around at the now-deserted food court. “I begin my quest. You still getting your kid that stick thing, you can get one for cheap at the Five Below upstairs. Take your time getting something for yer miss. I saw her face at the party two years ago when you got her fluffy socks. Try perfume.”

Scott started to brain storm.
“I’ll think of something. See you in a bit then.” He responds.
Harry pats him on the shoulder twice and walks off toward the crowd nearby.

A toddler who seemed to be no older than 5 is tugging on a woman’s arm, evidently wanting to venture into the crowded Apple store.
“Mooom, I want one, let’sa!”, he cries out, getting pink in the face.

Scott notices Harry paused to witness the event. The mother takes advantage of her superior strength and pulls the child away, who begins to wail, leaning backwards to prevent being pulled away. They both disappear in a bumbling crowd of shoppers. 

Harry turns to Scott’s direction and mouths the words “I weep for the future.” a common phrase he uses in any event to accentuate his disapproval in some cases.

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Quotes used whilst 'accidentally' eavesdropping:

• “Up ‘til maybe ten years ago people spent their youth finding their own identity, now everyone’s into that swag thing and aimlessly walking around with their eyes focused primarily on some tech device. Y’know that’s really been bugging me, technology in a way connecting us but in many ways driven us further apart than ever before.”
• “So much tech these days. This was unheard of back in ye old days, yeah? I remember asking for Tinker Toys and model cars to assemble. Now it’s tablets, phones, whatever.”
• “[A narcissi-stick] is what I call ‘em. They’re essentially just a telescoping stick with a grip on the end for a phone or anything with a camera on it. [Imitates the action in a silly manner]. Do-do-do-do-do… and they do the duck face, peace sign and whatnot. Self-indulgent people, especially young women tend to upload like a thousand pictures to Facebook or some sh!t like that… yeah, a day.”
• “Charlie Brown was and always will be right, Christmas has gone too commercial. It starts when it wants and ends immediately after midnight. Until then it’s gimme, gimme. I want this, I want that. The decorations are out in stores around the same time Halloween rolls around.”
• “I weep for the future.”

Emotion Video (Joy)

Emotion - (Joy)

What can I say, other than I find sentimental value in almost everything I see. Let's leave the grossness out of it. I find animals adorable, flowers beautiful, and sunrises/sunsets are awesome with the radiance they tend to give off. Only thing to top it is the ambiance of rushing water or best of all, rain falling and rolling thunder.

When my surroundings are less than pleasurable, count on me to drown them out with music.

Video games. One of the best methods of wasting time and simultaneously being productive.

Always be prepared.

Music Video Analysis (Take On Me)

Music Video Analysis

Above is one of my favorite music videos of the 80s (or rather it's debatable to be my favorite of all time) entitled Take On Me by A-Ha, featuring a action/romance narrative between singer Morten Harket and a young woman. This music video hosts rotoscope animation, tedious-as-all-hell form of art. It's a style whereas certain elements of a live-action sequence are 'painted' or 'sketched' over in a pre-chosen medium and coexist between our own reality and its own. What really knocks me out and impresses others who watch it with me is the camera panning to the right, showing us both sides of the magical looking glass, which filters reality with the comic book sketch animation.

The lyrics combine both his romantic interest in the actress (Bunty Bailey, btw) and the recurring plot line that is he's being chased by two jealous thugs who want him dead all because he beat them in a motorcycle race briefly scene in comic form at the very beginning. In the meantime that's put off to have pulled the young woman into his 'world', the comic she was reading in ours, in a diner. While all this is going on the waitress crushes the comic because, well, the girl vanished without paying for coffee. The animation is very fluid and seeing our lead actors have a good time gives a cheery vibe, that is until the thugs catch up to Harket and Bailey then proceed to chase them through a labyrinth of crumpled paper. There are a ton of angled shots, primarily in sketched form to show the intensity of the situation they're in however while singing the camera's usually static with a few moving parts. Every now and then we'd get a cutaway to live action band members playing keyboard/drums/etc.

When Harket and Bailey are cornered and there's no way out he 'rips' a page open so she can escape into the real world so she proceeds to grab the comic from the waste basket, run home and finish reading it to find out what happened to the hero. For those (and previous) shots the camera moves from one panel to the next as we would read something. In the very beginning it's a combination of static panels and animated ones. Lack of consistency? Not really because in the end, Bailey beats against the panel walls and dissolves from the comic entirely and eventually materializes in the real world where they both hug. The song has been parodied a few times, most notably in an early episode of Family Guy (as seen here). It's always good to see a rotoscoped piece, as it is very uncommon to see. This one's been reported to have taken artists 16 painstaking weeks to render ~3,000 frames.

T-273 Class Intro

le Self-Portrait & Biography

    My real name is Travis, currently a student at Indiana University of South Bend. I'm that one person we all know who stays shut indoors, mainly on a computer or working on something. This I am because I'm eager to learn new things, so I'm constantly reading or watching information, a pseudo jack-of-all-trades person and it's very interesting. My greatest and most favorite talents are cooking, rebuilding broken automobiles and electronics, and photography. Another hobby of mine that yet has to really take off is being a movie critic. I have quite a taste for well-made movies and outstanding audio, and the former being the reason most hours of the day I'll have ear buds plugged in and doing school things, auto work, or electrocuting myself.

   Out of the 510+ movies I own, the ones I like the most are the Croods, Tron: Legacy, Cars, and most of Jackie Chan flicks. You'll find some of my critiques a tad unorthodox every so often. What I look for in any story (whether it's a play, musical, animation, live action movie, etc) is obviously good acting, accurate casting, character development, plot and its adherance to titles, and my favorite: a great musical score. My favorite score is that of the aforementioned Tron: Legacy, composed entirely by Daft Punk, with the exception of 2 nostalgic 80s songs, a homage to the movie's 1982 prequel. After another couple of years as a New Media Student (minoring in Photography) I plan to launch my film critiques, as it is a time consuming hobby and at the moment college is the priority. Film and photography are very fun because there are practically no rules except those we decent people ought to abide by and must also we wary of copy-written material.

   Humans are intensely visual creatures and learners. Photos immortalize the best moments in our lives and video makes the delivery of information (if done right) quick, easy, and enjoyable. I'm fairly decent in both departments and am always striving to get better because I firmly believe there's always room for improvement.