Our final this semester in my film class was a 3 day film challenge, and had to create an ~ 3 min short film with the concept of love/lost, forgotten/remembered stuff like that (watch it here). Ive never been too good at these sort of film challenges, sure I did a 24 hour short film festival and won 2 awards but we had more specific guidelines (here). This challenge was very open ended which allowed for a lot of creative choices which is very nice of our teacher, but my group consisted of the 3 most indecisive people in the whole class so this was a very big struggle.

      We finally decided that we could  make a movie trailer for a longer short film so that we didn't have to think of all the  plot points and it  didn't have to make  much sense as far as structure goes.
We then came up  with the idea to do a sort of  witchy video, ya know kinda sinister, kinda creepy,  with a lot of room to get super nice shots,  we also had to figure out what song we where going to make this trailer to because if it doesn't have music then it gets very boring and no one wants to watch that, and after a long search we picked  'Night time' by the xx.

     With no time to lose we grabbed the equipment we needed (Cannon 70D, L..E.D. light kit, tripods, extra batteries, glide track) and we went shopping. The first thing that we bought were candles because you cant to creepy witchy stuff without candles can you? (We got up to the check out counter and I swear the cashier thought we were going to do some satanic stuff because she gave us the weirdest look). Then we headed to our first location.

Our first location was just behind a suburban neighborhood pool on a running trail. There are plenty of trees and coverage there to defuse the natural light so that we could incorporate it in along with light from our light kit. So by the time we get there its like 8:30 so not too late but it was about 30 degrees out so our crew was bundled up, but the thing we were more concerned with would be the fact that we could be seen by the inhabitants of the houses around us and a group of teenagers in the middle of the "woods" setting up lights and making a bunch of noise. So the threat of the cops loomed over us, but it would be the first time we have had the cops called on us while filming. Anyway we wrapped up at our first location at around 11:00 and everyone went home, because we would  continue filming tomorrow morning.

The next day we all assemble at one of the crew members houses and prepare to head off.  Our second location was at a local park in a clearing we had found earlier this year (we do love our nature shots here at Olathe Northwest). Anyway we had to hurry because we had a pretty strict time schedule. For our film class, e-Communnication aka e-Comm, we could be called out of the class to film outside of school during school hours, so we only had about 2 hours before we had to get back to school and it was a pretty long drive so we had even less time. At this point we had figured out that we really wanted a desaturated look  to the film so we had to  adjust the camera settings from the previous night to match the over casted daylight that we had. Although I was the actor I also acted as Director and Cinematographer, so I would set up the shot with a crew member filling in for me and once I got the shot perfect we would switch and roll the camera. This made thee filming process a lot longer because I had to recheck the shot to make sure that the camera movement (if there was any) was at the pace we needed.

Our last location was at a crew members house on there patio. We had our candles but also a special piece of equipment, a ring light. I had bought this light a while ago but never found a use for it yet and I thought this would be a very good opportunity to try it out. So at the end of the video you can see a very nice close up of me with the ring light in my pupil as it cuts back and forth to me in the same position with yet another candle in my hand.

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"Fools" is the 2nd video in the Blue Neighborhood trilogy created by Youtuber, Singer Troye Sivan.

This video is showing the lust for human connection in a world that doesn't truly accept people for who they are. We start in the same dimly lit room from the first video as we interrupt a passionate scene between Troye and or other actor (lets call him Cody). This scene is broken up by footage of, what we assume takes place after, Cody's life and the verbal and physical abuse that he has to endure from his drunk of father who does not support him for who he is. The main story is that the dad finds out that Cody has a boyfriend and is very angry about this. He goes into Cody's room (the same room the rest of the video takes place) and throws him around and shouts at him. We see a lot of similarity  juxtaposition between the dad and Troye; when Troye throws Cody down on the bed he has a since of relief and pleasure but when the dad throws him down onto the same bed we see that he is very scared.

We cut to a new scene where Cody and his dad are working on a boat in a location we (the audience) saw the younger versions of Troye and Cody playing in when they were young in the first video. Cody and his dad seem to be getting a long for now, but Troye enters the scene and the dad sees him and is about to go confront him. Fearing for Troye, Cody stops his dad and goes to talk to Troye himself and we see Cody basically telling Troye to go away and to leace him alone. All the while Troye is singing about how "only fools fall for [him]" meaning he feels betrayed by Cody even though he saw the black eye his father gave him. Cody goes back to his dad and assures him that Troye isn't coming back. His father seems very proud of him as where Cody looks very sad and conflicted. His dad puts his arm around him and we get our first good look at the two side by side.

In this scene they are dresses very similarly to show that Cody in his innocence or need for acceptance has taken his fathers words and views on homosexuality to heart and has tried to renounce that part of himself to become just like his father. Although we can see very clearly that he knows deep down that who he is trying to become is never who he was meant to be.

As we cut to the next scene this transformation becomes much more apparent as we see Cody walking down the street holding hands with who we assume is his new girlfriend. Troye happens to be walking down the same sidewalk and sees them together. Which of course breaks his heart... as it should.

That's it for this video! Ill post about the third video later on! Hope you enjoyed this post if you did please share it around and comment on what you would like me to talk about next!

Troye Sivan is a British Youtube creator and singer. Recently he has just released his new album 'Blue Neighborhood' and a music video trilogy to go along with it. The first video is to the song "Wild" and introduces the main story line for the trilogy.

We start the video in a dimly lit room with a close up on Troye's face seeing him clutching something that later on we find out is a person. The video is made up of flashbacks to, what we are shown, Troye's childhood and the adventures he had with his best friend. The video is filmed in a very artistic way with sun flares, very saturated shots when in the flashbacks and in the present we are presented with grudge shots in a dimly lit room. This is saying that the position he is in now is a dark or hard time for him and he longs for the days when everything was simpler.