New Short Film: ALLURE

ALLURE - A Short Film by Jackson Clark

An Inner Conflict: Part 1

I don't deserve the gear I have; imagine how pretentious I am when I say that gear is stopping me and/or my vision with TANGERINE premiering at SUNDANCE.  Do I really have a vision acute and mature enough to not be able to even pursue it with the thousands of dollars of equipment I have laying around? Shut up, stop thinking: Do.

This self reflection is at once both incredibly depressing and soulfully propulsive. Its weird. Idk.

Hopefully you learn something from this:)

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/sundance-premieres-sophisticated-tangerine-shot-on-iphone-5s-1201413692/

Another Saucy Sketch!

Link: JACKSON CLARK - Don't be so Saucy 

Well, here is yet another talking head, sketch comedy, utter goofy film. Hopefully I can advance beyond this, and work on something a little more ambitious.

OK, that probably wont happen next. But it cant be another talking head between my family. It can't! 

But,i guess my mission with this was to just keep on working on my production process. What I mean by that is just getting to a point where I know what I can do in a given amount of time. So whether it be lighting, sound, or general angles/takes per page, I just need to understand how I work, before I take on my fall semester short film (for which I am currently developing the story). I feel like that ability to understand what I can do on a technical level will allow me to organically visualize my project with confidence.

Visualization, or conceptualization, has now shown itself to be incredibly important in what i'm able to personally accomplish. When I first started this whole narrative film making thing, I never had a script or a plan. All I had was an organic idea, and it was incredibly easy to work and produce. I knew exactly where to put the camera...how the entire film was gonna flow...and what it was gonna look like. But, surprisingly, as soon as I started trying to dig deeper into why film works, both on a technical and thematic/kinetic level, that spontaneity went away. I wasn't able to visualize what I could do, as I was too concerned with what I needed to do in order to make a "good" movie. 

Quite simply, I had lost the confidence and understanding that came with ignorance, and that made it very hard to have fun making stuff. And with that fun, my approval of the whole project goes away. 

I guess these sketches are kinda serving as my attempt to get back to that organic necessity. I wont be using scripts...I wont be planning them. Ill just have an idea that I think is engaging, and shoot it. This is what I did for this sketch, and ill try doing either a sketch or an experimental film every week. I might not put up the film or picture or whatever, but I am really gonna try working towards being able to trust my technicality and composition, and focus on the organic process. I want to be able to play with my films. I want my films to come from my gut...not what I put on paper logically.

I am convinced that is from where my best ideas will come. 

That's it:)

Well, that's not it, but 'ill talk about other points when I have a film ready that's worthy of those thoughts.

Video info: I shot it at 1030-1200 at night, focusing on exercising lighting and audio components in a timely manner. I think those aspects turned out pretty well, for the time given. Lit with a 250W Halogen for key and 100W cool Tungsten for hair. Fill was just from practicals across the room. Really like some of the results. First time using my Rode Videomic as well, and had a blast being able to edit with good audio:)

My 35mm I used in the sketch. It looks great:)

Playing with the Vivitar-Tokina 35mm 2.8f :)

Well finally I found a Nikon compatible 35mm within my price:) Total randomness below. I hope to be able to shoot some video soon with these lenses, to really take advantage of the low light possibilities.....But until then: 

Light and the Lack Thereof

Ok, so I figured I would upload some of my favorite shots.  Basically, these are all my attempts to find and enhance some interesting dynamics in the play between light and dark, source and the object. For the statues, they were all top lit, so in shooting them, I played from underneath, as I could be able to highlight the bright more by keeping the majority in the dark. Of course, these all have amazing color, so that helps:) 

Nikon D5100 w/ Nikkor 50mm 

Friendship and Bagels - A Lighting Excercise

Wrote a lil script, made my siblings help/act, lit and shot, edited, and color corrected. Goal was just to come out with solid visuals. Pretty iffy about how it turned out. Maybe next time...

Im gonna be asking ya'll what you thought...so be ready:)

Ill just write how I lit this sketch. There was lots of natural light, but I really wanted to play with my can lights, so I balanced the color to that. Very basic key, rim light set up on both me and 

Casey (two 100W Tin Cans for me, one pointed to the ceiling to get a softer bounce for the rim. Casey got a 100W tin rim, and a 250W Halogen key behind the square shaped lamp.) I really had no choice except to let the natural light fill pretty much everything. 

Very basic. Wanted to go through the motions solid. Got a slight, slight, slight rembrandt triangle going on in the picture above:):):) 

Also watch out for my light stands;P

Link: Friendship and Bagels

Booyah

First Stills with my Nikkor 50mm 1.8f :)

Went out for some shenanigans with some of you hooligans.

Cool beans.

The "lion" shot