Current Castings

New Casting

    Dear Friend and one whom I would consider a brother, Nicholas Prieto has been cast to play the starring role of the project's main character of a soldier within a home battlefield. 

Set Location #1 Park/ Everglades

Everglades Location

    Using the everglades and the scenery close to me becomes a story advantage to depict a fictional war in which Invasion occurs in Florida. 

The location is just behind a local park serving as a trail for people to walk around. What's wonderful about this specific location is how the park just in front is very much secluded. This allows for the film to be shot without the worry of getting activity around. 

The trial included two of these posts which became perfect for the idea to use the posts as a military posts where the film would have them abandoned to create an empty atmosphere. 

The Possibility of Licensed Music

 Oceans of Emptiness

    At this point, it's no secret that metal, especially Deathcore, is one of my favorite genres of music. So it should come as no surprise that I can think of a multitude of songs that could fit the overall style of my project. Now, no, The opening will not be plagued by a plethora of destructive vocals and distorted riffs. A popular style of metal is when bands bring a symphonic element as songs combine the aforementioned ingredients with the elegant beauty of symphonies ranging from just a simple piano to an entire orchestra.

    Since the beginning of the projects, just one song has been able to captivate me to its role in my own work. One that keeps a constant pace compared to other songs that build up the vocals. I hereby Introduce "Oceans of Emptiness" by Make Them Suffer. Make Them Suffer is an Australian Metal band whose early work consisted of Deathcore material. In fact, this song comes from the band's first record Neverblooom. The song is one of two songs that are not only instrumental but are also entirely symphonic. You can listen to the song below

Oceans of Emptiness By Make Them Suffer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5s0pGcaRT4 

    Despite its length, I don't plan to use the whole song for the opening, to give way for the rest of the film's exposition as a war film. The song is meant to allude to the film's dreary yet mysterious conflict regarding invasion and isolation. However, first, must come official permission from the band as I contact the band's email or individual band members. 

War Film Concept: [No Name Yet]

 Determining Plot 

    When I had initially begun to think of War films and the subsequent stories, I immediately began to think of possible routes to go on given my limitations and possible filming locations. Visually, I grew Inspired by the likes of films like 1917 and Dunkirk, in which each film uses cool color hues as they follow the main characters from the very first shot. Intertwining this with cards that breaks the scene up, would allow for more visual exposition before kicking off the entire story post-credits.

    As A story, I WAS inspired by a specific section in the video game, Call of Duty Modern Warfare II's Story, in which the game depicts a full-scale invasion on U.S. soil. Given my plan to use the everglades as a set location (more info on upcoming post), I want to depict the environment as a battlefield on American Soil with the war being to the advantage of the invaders. I do also plan to use different sound motifs to establish the dominance of the opposing side of the war

    The film will follow a single character isolated in the everglades and nearby town, ravaged by warfare. Traversing through abandoned Posts and ghost towns, the character must figure out a means of survival and to get back to a unit, wherever he can find one. Within an environment against the main character, and a lack of supporting characters, the story becomes extremely isolating. The film opening will establish this from the very beginning as we follow an isolated soldier on a battlefield of his own home 

No name has been decided yet 

-LUIS III

War Films: An Intro To A History Based Genre

 War Films

    War as a concept and theme is something that has been recently exposed to me once again and continues to be around me. War as a genre Decpits war as the center focus of the story being told. In the film, War has been in the biggest film names such as Saving Private Ryan, 300, and 1917. Typically depicting wars from history, each story becomes uses a harsh and realistic setting to shows the horrors of the past. They also bring typically bring a psychological element in which characters are forced to interact with the harsh environment. It truly becomes a case study of the effects of war on all different levels: Personal, Social, political. 

My Exposure To War In Media 

MUSIC

    As mentioned, War as a genre has been recently around the media I take in. One of the biggest depictions of war I Was first exposed to was Deathcore Band, Shadow Of Intent's Record release of Elegy. The album is written to describe the different events, in history, that was ravaged by war. This included the album eluding to The Ardennes Offensive of 1944, The Red Famine, and Other Topics relating to war as a topic

    In terms of metal, the album can be thematically compared to Fit For An Autopsy's Sea Of Tragic Beast. Both Albums are heavily impacted by the discussion of war, each with their own perspective as Shadow Of Intent's album takes a more historical perspective whereas Fit For An Autopsy focuses on the individual and psychological effects of war.

FILM

    Of course, this would not be a concept, let alone a project if it wasn't for the influx of war films I have seen in recent times. Even from the first film (Which was Saving Private Ryan) I had watched to be reintroduced to the genre, I sought to study the genre and its conventions. Whether they were Films about the world wars, to the Somalian conflict in the early 90s, each of them had something to offer such as the uses of long, open shots Portraying isolation and uncertainty; as well as tight close-ups of characters facing harsh environments.

    Along with the larger films I had seen, I had also seen documentaries of Steven Speilberg's amateur films depicting war, that would ultimately lead to the birth of Saving Private Ryan. I felt inspired by his innovative uses to depict war is many different fronts to tell a captivating story. 

How Will This Be Used In My Project

    When it Comes to the creation of this project, I realize the limitations of creating a film opening on war. However, after viewing some pieces and understanding the themes that surround war from a story perspective, it brings me the confidence to use the planned environment in creating a war-torn landscape that the character must face. This becomes inspired by the likes of Dunkirk and 1917 where both war films use setting at the main antagonist towards the characters. Even though the intro can an audience learn so much about a character with how they interact with the world around them, even if it's a world plagued with battle.  

--LUISIII

(Lone Survivor)

    (1917)

Moving on to Film Openings

 Onto The Next Project: Film Openings 

   While it was extremely entertaining and enlightening to work in the realm of music marketing and a music video, it is time to move on to the next work: the next project. The next wave, next project, next big thing will be in the manifestation of a film opening project. It’s been a project that I had thought about for a very long time at this point, however, having somewhat a difficult time thinking about what exactly I wanted to work on. The genre, setting, overall story never came to mind until the project had officially begun, and almost immediately. During in which the project was beginning to become reality, I had grown heavy inspiration from Steven Spielberg’s amateur film work that would lead into the creation of Saving Private Ryan. Though the extra content of the film, I learned of how Spielberg would create war films simply using a whole arsenal of tools and pure found creativity. It is also notable to mention how during this time I had been watching different war films such as Saving Private Ryan, Dunkirk, Black Hawk Down, and 1917. I could confidently say that War films and it’s genre has been pretty well exposed to me recently; hence my inspiration to establish a war film as a film opening. 

Wanting to create a war film, naturally there is a lot to think about in a technical sense. This is especially true to establishing that my product is a war film. Since sticking with these idea, I have come to think about concepts such as costume and set design to establish the look of the film. As of writing, I continue to ponder over the best ways to establish the genre through such methods.

In a story telling perspective, the war itself will be entirely fictional, taking place in U.S. soil as this near future war zone compared to other war films. Overall I feel rather confident with this decision as the setting would be a key factor to establishing genre and how the character interacts with the setting.

-LUISIII 

Music Marketing: The Process and Finalization

    As mentioned in a previous post, a group and I had been working on a project which was based around The creation and subsequent marketing of a music brand. Being Selected to use the country genre, we settled with Lady A's "Need You Now" and began to find a way to present our new brand in the best light we can bring. Thus O.N.L.Y was born. 

    ONLY is a Country duo featuring the couple of Oscar NewBourne and Lila Yeager as the group and I felt it unique and favorable to bring on this nightly aesthetic that we chose. After the establishment of the Duo themselves, The group began the planning for our music video as we wanted to tell their story of the couple and their story. this would be accompanied by the use of Low light and street cinematography to fit the overall look of the brand. During our planning, we agreed to use our Town Center. This would be accompanied by warm lighting on shits that took place indoors or during the later afternoon.     

    The Filming Process was a very fun yet very uncomfortable day for myself and the group members. The largest reason for this was the declining temperatures as the night came away. Unfortunately for us, we shot the same day that South Florida had a large cold front. By the time nightfall came, we were freezing during the shoot. While uncomfortable, the rest of the shooting proved everything to be worth it as we were able to get great shots and establish the nightly tone of our video. 

    As filing made way, our group of four divided and conquered as we began to work on our marketing such as merch and social media. Merch was a very easy yet extremely fun and fulfilling side of our project. Every member was able to test out merch ideas and present them to each other with great effect. this included denim jackets, crew-necks, and Touring T-shirts.  

    Editing was a personal aspect of the project that I handled. It was a long and tedious process to bring together the footage and song together to make a clear-cut story. one of the hardest things to do was Synch up the audio with the promotional shots of the music video. there were about six different shots where this needed to be done. Having to mix the shots up only to synch them as well. the Process was draining, However, it was extremely rewarding. 

    As the project came to an end I felt that my group really pulled all of our weight to not only tell a well-produced story but also bring a face to our story. This only made us more proud as we weren't sure how to tackle a genre that we were extremely unfamiliar with. We manage to grow our knowledge and tackle the task head-on and create something we can be proud of.