 Hello, hello, it's Shabo and Nick Che coming back with another video today I'm starting a new series on my channel called directors cut Which is basically where I go through my past films whether it's short films music videos Just any type of creative projects where I've been the director of it and kind of break down the process of you know Not only the shooting but also the editing what I'm thinking and the entire process that goes behind making an entire film now Thank you to the sponsor this video skillshare as many of you guys know I am a self taught creative filmmaker and photographer and freelancer so everything I've learned has been online whether it's through YouTube tutorials Or places like skillshare where they have so many different courses offered to learn just about anything whether it's graphic design Directing editing to make sure to stick into the end of the video But today I decided I'm going to be starting with my very first short film which was entitled summer time I made it last year for one of the film classes on campus It was an entire semester-long project and this was actually our final grades So a lot of work had to go into it for pre-production Casting location scouting the whole shoot took about two two and a half days editing took about a week long Sound design color grading. There's a lot of different things. I went into the short film But today I'm just gonna be breaking down a few of my favorite scenes and kind of show what exactly I was thinking If you haven't already seen the entire film I highly recommend checking it out before you watch this video Just so you can get an idea of the entire flow of things and so that way I can just focus on a few different scenes from this film So just to give you a little bit of background about summer time It is about two artists living in New York City. One of them is Kate Weathers who's a jazz saxophone musician He's currently auditioning for a lot of different gigs and jobs, but he finds out that it's not only getting harder for him to You know get his dream job But he's losing sight of the whole reason he started getting into music And that was simply for the love of it and his girlfriend in the film helps him recognize the real reason He started it and kind of brings them back to his roots. So that's what the entire film is about It's inspired a lot by Lala land Which is one of my favorite movies and you'll see a lot of similarities in between them for the casting of this I reached out to my good friend from high school. His name is Chandler Singhs He currently attends the Manhattan School of Music and he is a musical theater major and he's done a lot of acting before We've actually shot another short film together So I thought it'd be fun for him to work with me on this project And he also brought along his good friend who plays the girlfriend Nancy in this film So let me just break it down I'll kind of just play through a little bit and we'll see you from there. So mr. Withers How long have you been playing saxophone? Six years ma'am. I I See you're studying with Professor Collins. How's that been going? It's been great. Yeah, he's a terrific. So what are you playing today? All the things you are Whenever you're ready So in this first scene, I kind of wanted to show that there's a little bit of tension in this room You can kind of tell that Kate has been going through a series of auditions and that this judge who was played by once again Motor Chandler's friends is just kind of disinterested not really paying attention to you know him his teacher or anything He's really talking about which is why I decided to go back and forth between just a straight camera angle going face-on They should kind of show that just juxtaposition that they're not in the same frame at the same time until later on in this Set, you know when it comes to filmmaking the essence behind it is storytelling now in that scene I could have easily you know done an entire scene of him actually going through playing the saxophone and going through the entire Audition but that wouldn't be necessary for the storyline Especially for a short film where time is so essential that I just decided to cut to right after the scene when the audition results are already out If you notice right there There's a subtle glance between Chandler and the judge as she's posting the audition results And then she walks off and you can see Chandler hurries and gets up and approaches it Little Easter egg all the names that are on these results are actually friends from my high school band So I thought it'd be fun to just kind of plug their names in there If you know it's right before this there's a very subtle camera movement that kind of pans down as Chandler's hand is tracing that and I Just wanted to show the movement of you know He's very anxiously like trying to find his name the hard part about the short film was that I was filming in New York City Which is obviously super crowded very hectic and it's hard to find a quiet place where we can set up all our equipment and actually film So luckily I was able to get funding through Princeton to rent out an Airbnb for a night so that we could film this bedroom scene Which is supposed to mimic like an a modern apartment house for the two of them Well, what'd you play I played all the things you are again Now the really hard thing about short films or films in general really is you have to have so much coverage and so many different Camera angles and setups that if you don't go into the shoot without Pre-production and planning the shots out ahead of time. You're gonna be completely lost You're gonna be wasting your actors time You'll be wasting a lot of money if there are dozens of people on set So as a director, it's really important for you to have a clear vision of exactly what you want the shot to look like How are you gonna set the camera angles before you even go into the setting so for this shot since it is a very Tight-quarter. I was using a lot of different angles Not only like at the front of the bedroom from but also from the side of the bedroom so that I could kind of maximize the space and get Different angles and show different coverage So that kind of first scene of him like hitting the bed laying down I got it from the side obviously now this next dialogue when it comes to dialogue If you don't know and something that I didn't really know going into editing or filmmaking itself was that when you when you Cover a dialogue scene. There's always, you know an over-the-shoulder Covering two people if that makes sense So there's two people talking right here You're gonna have the camera facing this person you're gonna do their take maybe two or three different times Then you're gonna switch the camera to the other side Then you're gonna film this person do the same thing maybe film that take two or three times and then you fill in the cover Shot so you know him lying on the bed him getting up anything that you're gonna need to fill in those little details Now one of my favorite parts in this entire film is this little montage sequence Which honestly didn't take the longest to film because I knew exactly how I wanted it to look I knew the pacing of it I knew the shots that I had to give before I even started filming that I just went bam, bam, bam And we were able to get through it really quickly obviously when it comes to montage The whole point of that is to show a progression of some sorts and for this progression itself is showing how Kate is going through So many different trials and going through a bunch of different practices going to different auditions and you know And failing multiple times but still getting back up and that's just the whole progression of this montage sequence So just that like one scene of him walking and transitioning from different outfits I mean like it's obviously like very simple and like you know exactly what I'm doing But Chandler just had like four different shirts in his backpack He changed out of them real quick and we filmed just him walking against a different background And I knew exactly how I wanted it to look so he would stand there I would walk about like 10 steps away from him place the camera on the tripod because I knew I had to keep that distance The same and just film that four different times Now if you notice here There's kind of a very subtle reference that will be you know mentioned later in the film But Nancy tying up these ties for him You know to show that he's going to different auditions that he's getting ready and that she's being supportive of him all along I also kind of wanted to show the progression of Nancy and Cade's relationship as the auditions begin to wear on him So you can tell that he's not as interested He's falling asleep because he's so tired and that this is obviously causing conflict within their relationship as well So right there that's a little reference I mentioned earlier with the ties is like when he's doing it by himself He realizes that Nancy's not there to do it for him And it's just this kind of like somber sad, you know emotion that he's feeling just because she's not there to Support him on this kind of last audition now for this entire film. I wrote directed edited produce Soundgraded color graded everything about this whole film I did by myself, which is honestly like one of the most difficult processes But also one of the most fulfilling processes because everything that went into this project was my own work and I had full creative control and Not that I would do that exact same thing in the future because I know that there's value in working in a team But it gave me a lot of freedom taught me a lot of things about you know Myself as a director as an editor as you know just a producer and everything that goes into making a film But I realized the difficulties of this especially when I was filming this scene right here Which is um outside of Central Park in New York. It was pretty cold I was trying to do sound while filming on a gimbal and not having another sound person to do it Really in my backpack. I had the sound recorder I might them up with lavalier mics, which are like the little mics that you know kind of go right here Recording as I'm like checking audio with my headphones walking backwards and making sure that they're getting the lines correct And honestly like that was super difficult But it's it's not one of like the best film scenes, but it shows that like you can do this with a one-person team Now this last scene it was very serendipitous That we found a flower stand right outside of where we are filming because I had that vision in my head of like He would go and get flowers before he showed up and luckily like by the grace of God It was there right around the corner So we bought these flowers and then you see he brings them to Nancy to kind of make up and show that he you know Did what she told him to do played it for the love of it And that it all ended up working and that's the whole point of this whole film is to show that You know you do what you love because you love it Not because for the fame or the money or anything like that And I think the whole message of this film was just dedicated to artists everywhere in that You need to pursue what you do because once again, you love it You're genuinely passionate about it. You can't stop thinking about it and for me. That's obviously filmmaking I wanted to tie in obviously my love for music, which is why I you know integrated the jazz aspect of it I was able to work with some really great actors got funding from Princeton was able to film in New York We did this in about two days, which is actually you know pretty decent timing Considering it was just about a three-man team no budget at all really very minimal gear I was shooting on one camera one lens a tripod and a gimbal and some mics and that was literally about it No lights no makeup no costume nothing none of that so I just kind of wanted to show that it is possible to do with one person and that You know, there's a lot of value to be gained from it. I hope you guys enjoy this first episode of the director's cut I know that was really fun for me to kind of go through the process of you know making an entire film Once again, if you haven't checked out the entire thing I highly recommend checking it out down below and if you are looking to get more into directing film making editing or anything creative or anything That you need a skill in particular. I highly recommend checking out the sponsor this video skillshare Skillshare is an online learning community for creators with more than 25,000 classes in design business and more if you have any types of goals You want to be reaching in 2019 whether it's learning a new language learning how to cook learning more about graphic design Skillshare has thousands of classes in all of those and more one of my favorite courses taught on skillshare is by John Olson And he's a great youtuber and awesome photographer and he goes to step-by-step process of how he edits his photos for Instagram And it's a huge help especially for someone like me who's always trying to find new techniques to edit my photos and improve my workflow It's also super affordable with an annual subscription of less than $10 a month now the first 500 subscribers will get the first two months free So I highly recommend checking out that link in my description Anyways that about wraps up for this video make sure you guys comment down below anything else you guys want to see Subscribe for more videos and as always don't stress finesse