Rook Studios Presents…

 The big day is here! As of today, Rook Studios had officially started filming  Black, White and Red .  The scenes filmed were scenes one, three, and nine: Establishing (The Chess Game), Rook’s Walk, and You Can’t Solve ‘Em All. We experimented with different kind of shots for these scenes, and ended up with quite a few takes of each. Our scene with the most takes was scene nine, with about nine takes.  We also took some suggestions from the actors. While filming Rook’s Walk , it was suggested (jokingly) that Rook should trip over a rock, or something of the sort.  Even better, we decided to have Rook trip over her own feet, to add a comedic effect, and to better characterize Rook.  We also took Angel’s suggestion to yell at the King during You Can’t Solve ‘Em All. It added to the amount of rage and betrayal the Traitor was feeling, and it also added to the final product.  Overall, we had a great first day of filming! We plan on working out a few issu...

 After our Pre-Production Proposal was submitted, we received feedback. One of the main issues was the lack of clarity. Our story wasn’t clear, we were missing some scenes.  To fix this, and to aid the crew and actors, I made a list of the scenes and what would happen during each. The list can be found below :)

 Rook Studios has spent the past three days finalizing our Pre-Production Proposal. Everyone had a job to do, and everyone worked extremely hard to get it done. I was in charge of our genre statement, cast list, call list, and assembling everyone else’s work. Tomorrow, we officially start production with our cast! As for the rest of today, I plan to work out some plotholes in our story. Until tomorrow! (names have been erased for safety reasons)

 Quite a bit has happened since the Thanksgiving break!  Me and another group member scouted for possible locations. We found two good locations: Near our school’s peace mural, and near the baseball field fence.  After finding locations, we did a couple takes and played around with Investigator Rook’s ‘walk’ scene. In detective movies, the main Detective usually has an iconic ‘walk,’ or introduction scene. We wanted to incorporate this in our film, and we can’t wait to see how it looks in the final product! Locations selected can be seen below! Here is where most of our scenes will take place. We plan on using a backdrop for one scene specifically. This is the chosen location for Rook’s ‘walk’ scene. We hope we do this iconic scene justice!   

I’m proud to announce the actors and actresses taking part in  Black, White, and Red!  The following document lists the names and roles that appear in the film. We’re happy to have you on board! Black, White, and Red Cast List!

 Genre research was key in creating the foundation for Black, White, and Red. Now that a theme has been indefinitely decided on, research was done, and is still being done. One of the limitations of this project is the lack of sound. Originally, I thought voiceovers could be used over the filming of the actors. The issue with this was the end result: It would look horribly sloppy. After some time, I decided to embrace the silence, and create a 1920’s-inspired silent film. It would work perfectly with the mystery-drama genres, and the rest of the team seemed to agree. I knew the basics, these movies were old Hollywood creations, set in around the early 1900’s. And of course, the use of inaudible dialogue, was obvious.  These movies used non-diegetic, and quite iconic, title-cards to ‘narrate’ what was going on and being said, as shown in the example below:  ‘Charles Chaplin in The Pawnshop’ (1916) was a silent film I watched, to get a better understanding of the silent mo...

The team, myself included, had an incredibly productive first brainstorming session.  On Day One, we started out by assigning roles and getting to know each other. Within a few minutes, we got a sense of who each other was, along with what role each person would play in this project. I also spent time looking over the role of director, and the responsibilities I was in charge of. Brainstorming began immediately after.  We went back and forth, listing possible genres we could use, and we thought of a couple storylines we could work with. We considered filming actual chess pieces, a rom-com style film including a flirty game of chess, along with a few other ideas.  We then thought of meshing two more popular genres: Mystery and drama. Once we had our genres, ideas fell into place. We finally decided on filming a murder mystery.  Our original idea was to film chess pieces, and hire voice actors to record voiceovers. Some actors were suggested, and some were hired that d...

Hi! I’m Bella, the director of Black, White, and Red! This is my first year taking a Media Studies class, and I’ve learned quite a bit already.  As a child, and still to this day, I’ve always wondered how movies were made. I knew the basic concepts, but that was barely the beginning. I’ve so far learned about the thought process that goes into making films, as well as techniques used. I’ve also learned a bit about my own media habits along the way. I love my movies fictional, action-packed, and mysterious. In fact, the team at Rook Studios has decided to incorporate these themes into our project!  It will be a trying, but mostly fun, process. I look forward to incorporating the techniques we’ve studied so far into our project. Most of all, I can’t wait to share the finished product!