Production brought up big changes

This weekend I made many changes in my film. First of all the title of the film was changed to "Hues of Blue", no parenthesis around the U. I kept thinking about the emphasis around the U and it just felt like I was stating the obvious and was trying to be clever. Hues of Blue already sounds beautiful and very poetic. So I decided to stay with that title alone.

Also, during the second day of production, many questions were brought up in my mind. It felt like I had a great amount of conceptual messages, but I was not really being able to visibly represent them on camera. I had to do a lot of thinking and create more tangible images that could then illustrate the meaning behind them. For instance the boxes that I created for the desk scene were beautiful but the viewer did not know they were empty, the more I looked at them during editing and the more I asked for my peers opinions, I realized that they looked like christmas gifts, beautiful christmas gifts, but they had nothing to do with what I wanted to say. So I decided to get rid of that scene and shoot again but without the boxes.

Still from new shot

Moreover,  I also made some changes in the story. I think the idea of escaping wasn't really stated in the footage that I had taken two weeks ago. The character Veronica had a map but she never really stated where she was going and why she was going. So I meditated and searched for those questions, and decided that Veronica wants to escape to search for more shades of Blue. In fact shade number 95 in the color spectrum (There are only 94 shades), she will communicate this through dialogue in the opening scene, and it will be a voice over as it is done in Richard Ayodae's, Submarine, when character briefly mentions an question about human existence while he sits in the corner of his bedroom. I made the decision that she will travel to the Pico islands in the middle of the Atlantic to search for this shade of blue. I chose this destination simply because of its remoteness and its beautiful landscapes, and I feel a deep curiosity towards this place. Leaving home to go there just seems bizarre and a little nonsensical.

Pico Island

Pico Island

Moreover, I was thinking about the still shots that I love so much. The stills will essentially establish that Veronica lives in Miami, and I think this will bring up questions about why would she leave Miami, why escape from paradise?

This weekend I also shot at a lighthouse in Key Biscayne, and I though that if I could make it look as if Veronica lived in the lighthouse, the idea of being trapped and stuck could be emphasized even more. In a digital arts program I went last summer I gained a lot of knowledge about Photoshop and some knowledge on After Effects as well, so I was able to create a composition that creates the sensation of her living inside of the lighthouse, I will share a post about that process as well.

This is the window that will be used in After Effects 

Key Biscayne Lighthouse

I am very glad with this decision about finding other hues of blue, I think it is very poetic that my character is determined escape from home to in the quest for an unknown shade of blue. I already know where she will find that last blue... home.