Confidence

Through some emails and some revelations I am feeling a tad bit more confident in my project. First off to start, I have been very hesitant in what I have been doing. The thought has entered my head at times that has really questioned what I was doing. Was I doing the right thing. It seemed like the farther I went along in my project, the farther from my goal I was getting. My searches spiraled farther away from an ending and the frustration grew.

At first I took a pretty generic thing, film, thought about it and figured I liked silent film and wouldn't it be neat to make a silent film. All of this part of the inquiry came quite quick. I knew of Windows Movie Maker and its potential (though I didn't know all the techniques and am still learning) knew of some films from the time period and had a great amount of motivation behind me making me want to do it.

But then came the rehash. What should I film? Can I make a movie? Do I have the resources available? Is this project even acceptable, after all its for entertainment, not anything academic. Through searching and emails I am now feeling that I may be onto something. I have reached the point in Kulhthau's process where I have formed my focus and am now collecting information. It is in this point that confidence starts gaining and I can truly feel that way.

To start off first I have an idea of what kind of film I want. I want something that serves more of a purpose than just to complete this project, I want something that my family can enjoy. My parents don't get to see their grandchild all that much so I was figuring he could be the major star in it.

Next I tried thinking of what genre I wanted. Prelinger archives have a series of shorts in their repertoire and watching them gave me some ideas. I like the slapstick features of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin but don't really feel like I can fit my two year old son into this style of acting. I watched Hell's Angels, a flying movie that was originally shot as a silent and see that I may be able to do this. My son's room is loaded with model airplanes and I may be able to use these to make flying scenes. I was also thinking I may be able to use some snippets of aircraft shots to make other parts. I am still wondering on copyright on this but I think if I am not making it to make money it might be alright. At least that is what I heard.

I was wondering about how to make the word stills and called up my uncle who has been working with Movie Maker since it came out. He told me about the caption function but I have been a little disappointed with that. Most of the old movies had a frame around the captions and I can't really find a way to do that with the caption model. I think I'll look to see if there is a website that messes with this or even if I could make it myself.

As for music, I have a stash of old records from the 20s and 30s and now that I have a record player that can convert them to MP3s, I think I have a soundtrack. These discs never go past three minutes so I now have a time limit also. It's like everything is falling into place.

Now to make a script or at least think up a direction I want to go. Now that I have some confidence that I know where I am going, this project is becoming fun again. Now to see if I can get a two year old to work with me.