Kyle's Super Swag Film Blog

Open Broadcast Software (OBS) is one of the most commonly used solutions for screen recording and live-streaming. With it being difficult being able to go out and film outside of my home during quarantine, I decided to try and learn to use OBS as I feel it may be a useful tool for some of the projects that I have ideas for. The following is what I have learned so far about using OBS. OBS Basics When first launching OBS the program at first may seem intimidating. However, after a little set-up, it begins to make sense. The first step in the process to work in OBS is to create a scene. Scenes allow for an easy way to have different preset formats for the content you are recording. Once you create your first scene, the next step is to add your different sources. There are a variety of different sources that you can input into a scene such as window capture, display capture, game capture, video device capture, and media capture. Once sources are entered into the scene, you are able to ...

Feature length films and television series are both different outlets that a filmmaker is able to use to express their stories. The lengths of both formats have their own strengths and weaknesses for a filmmaker to be aware of. I have done some investigating in order to compare both formats in order to determine which to consider writing for. Series Writing a story as a television or streaming series allows for longer and more detailed stories to be told. An episode of a series will usually be anywhere from thirty to sixty minutes long. While at first this limited amount of time may seem like a hindrance, splitting your story into multiple episodes allows for more time overall to go into detail and tell your story. An example that I have observed of shorter episodes benefiting storytelling can be seen in the differences between the fourth season of the anime series  Jojo's Bizarre Adventure  and its film adaptation Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable Chapter...

Since the third marking period has reached its end, It is once again the time to reflect on what work I have accomplished over this time. Intention Definition & Exploration Of Ideas After the second marking period had ended, I continued to explore the theme of politics and the social order that I had originally intended within my next film. This was my primary focus for this marking period as I had not gotten to a point that I could begin thinking about another idea to explore for another project. As for my exploration of the theme of politics and the social order, I feel that I have done a fairly good job at understanding the theme but done a less good job at expressing that theme in my next film. While I do express this theme within the film, it currently is not expressed as well as I would like it to be. Planning Since the third marking period contained the production stage of my film, a majority of the planning I did was for production. My planning for this film had led...

After doing my part on this year's Mini-THON technology committee and working on production during the night of the event, I have gained some experience as to what it is like to work with a team of people all working together, simultaneously, to create a final product. Filming On A Team During the Mini-THON pep rally, I was one of the committee members tasked with moving around the floor and filming. This process was different for me as I did not have much prior experience with filming live events. Having multiple other people alongside me filming had also created the issue of having too many cameras all filming the same shot. This issues caused me to think of where I could go and what I could do in order to get different footage from the rest of my fellow committee members. Another thing that was different for me was the fact that because it was a live event, I would only have one opportunity to get each shot unlike when filming a traditional film where I could film as many tak...

One of the most important aspects of cinematography that goes commonly unnoticed is having the camera steady. Even a slight amount of movement within a shot can pull the audience away from the film, so it is important to attempt to have shots. There are multiple different ways that you can use to stabilize your camera, some of which are more effective than others. Tripod Using a tripod is the easiest way to stabilize the camera while filming. By having three points of contact with the ground, a tripod keeps the camera extremely stable. The camera would likely only move due to very large movements on the ground or strong winds. The one downside to using a tripod is that it has to remain stationary. If the required shot involves moving around, a tripod can likely not be used. Overall, the tripod is the easiest, simplest, and cheapest way to keep your camera steady. (Image Source) Shoulder Rig A shoulder mount is one way to keep the camera stable while also being able to mov...

After completing pre-production at the end of the second marking period and finishing in class presentations, I went forward with the production stage of my project. The following presented work is what I have accomplished: Production Day #1 The first day of filming was scheduled for February 14th as it was a day off from school. As I did not have a final list of actors for when I had created my pre-production blog post, I made sure to decide upon my actors and make sure that their schedules worked with mine, prior to filming. The first day of filming, all my actors arrived at the time I requested them to show up. Unlike my last project, I am acting within this film, so I employed the help of Justin Creelman to work the camera for me. This scene was supposed to be set within an old fashioned western store front. Since western store fronts are a tough commodity in central Pennsylvania, we filmed within the shed in my backyard. The process of filming went fairly well. Both of my acto...

Looking back on the audio I have recorded for my next project, I have some fears that some of it might not be usable in my next film. If there is a scenario that a clip wouldn't be able to be used, I would have to find some way in order to correct this error. This led me to investigate the process of Automated Dialog Replacement (ADR). ADR And How It Affects A Film  Automated Dialog Replacement is the process of re-recording spoken lines of dialogue following the original recording of a scene. Through this process, a better/cleaner recording can be created, which helps to improve the original quality of the scene. While ADR can significantly improve a scene, if done improperly, the audience could possibly notice that the characters within the scene are not actually speaking the audio that is being heard. An example of bad ADR can be seen in this scene from The Great Gatsby. In this scene, Leonardo DiCaprio's mouth does not appear to match the words that he is saying as wel...