Process
Concept
The fake movie created for this movie is a Wild West take on the show Breaking Bad. The show is about Walter White, a terminally ill school teacher, who takes up cooking meth to make money with Jesse Pinkman, one of his former students. Throughout the show, Walter’s character spirals as he crosses lines morally, and his true nature is revealed. My “movie,” Rain or Shine, is about Walker White, another terminally ill school teacher who starts making and selling moonshine with his partner James.
Breaking Bad’s opening sequence is a flash forward, it starts where the first episode ends, in the middle of the action. I took a similar approach to my title sequence. I wanted to flash forward to a moment where the character Walker doesn’t know if he will survive his next encounter, so he reflects and desperately writes a letter to his wife and son. I try to show that this is not what his life was and how much he has changed since he began his life of crime.
For my poster, I want to show the characters off in a gritty western way. I photographed my actors in several poses for the sillhoutte shot to show their character in the later parts of the hypothetical movie. They’ve been through a lot, and their characters are different than they were at the beginning, for worst in the case of Walker. I try to do this through their expressions and their props. I give Walker a gun and a bottle of moonshine to show that, for one, they make moonshine, and to show that he is not innocent, he’s taken up a dangerous life and has crossed the line.
Poster
My original plan was to have an asymetrical layout for the poster with a figure and an outline of a face. I felt like the end result was incomplete so I decided to go with a more symetrical version.
Filming
I chose a Western themed movie because I knew my roommate had a wood cabin that would be a perfect set for the project. We had a lot of fun shopping for costumes and ended up with something really cool. I used my roommates as actors and I think they did a pretty good job. It took about a day and a half to get everything set up and filmed. I stuck to my storyboard for most of the shots and they turned out well.
(also all guns used in filming were props and were either BB-guns or were ancient and do not work, we made sure of this)
Editing
I have some experience video editing in Premier for other school and personal projects so this went pretty smoothly. I bought some stock music that I loved, and my roommate recorded the voiceover. We redid some sound effects in post to make everything work. This included screaming and banging on doors in the middle of the night for the bad guy dialogue.
Finished
After some color grading and final tweaks, I was satisfied with the final results. I bought some mockups and got everything finished. Overall this was a fun project, I couldn’t have done it without my roommates help with acting and props so I am grateful to them.