Looking Back
Hi, my name is Dario and today I'm here to discuss the course of my film opening project which I have worked on from February 13 to April 13. During these two months, I have covered many aspects of film making, from genre research to scriptwriting, and casting to shooting locations. Below I'll be taking some time to discuss the process and go over what has gone into the making of Midnight Run.
At the very beginning, I knew I wanted to make the movie have something to do with cars so I decided to focus the first part of the production on researching movie genres that were related to cars, mainly the street racing genre. I looked at movies related to street racing such as the Fast and Furious franchise, Baby Driver, and others. In addition to these, I looked at other movies within the action genre that contained chase scenes. The movie Ronin was one that offered great insight with its magnificent BMW 535i. However, not being able to perform stunts on public roads what I was mainly interested in was capturing the aesthetic of street racing with a hint of crime thrown in. One show that helped in choosing angles and general choreography was the iconic anime Initial D, influenced by one of the pioneers of mountain pass racing (toūge).
This also influenced my decision to use my car as the focus of the opening, which is an old 1999 Toyota Corolla CE. Although it's pretty slow, I pretended like it was a sleeper (a normal car with a highly tuned engine) for the sake of the opening, and as an underlying joke to those who understand cars and racing. I then moved onto deciding my plot, which would involve two crooked mechanics who have the car in their shop. One wants to keep it, and the other is angered, saying it jeopardizes their side hustle. Agreeing but taking the car anyways, the mechanic sets out driving, on the run. For casting, I had the commitment of one of my classmates Dom to play the second mechanic. I thought I had the commitment of another friend as a cameraman but later on with the quarantine due to COVID-19 I had to depend on Dom and his tracking tripod. In addition to the tripod, I gathered other equipment and props such as tools and the cars jack and wrenches. For cameras, Dom and I used a GoPro Hero5 and our phones. As one of the props, I briefly contemplated a fake gun in a scuffle scene, but I wasn't sure how safe it would be since we would be shooting in a public place.
Moving onto the locations, I originally packed a handful of parking garages, parking lots, and rest stops, but quarantine narrowed down those options to just two locations: the first parking area on I-75 and Meridian Business Park. This would make it far easier to shoot as both locations are close to and within the city. Getting to shooting itself took some time. Both Dom and I for both our respective projects constantly had to postpone shooting due to several delays at first, and then because of quarantine. Eventually, we did get out and have two separate days of shooting. Both days went fairly successfully and we got good footage, but unfortunately, we could not get all of Dom's shots. After this was done, I got Adobe Premiere Pro and began to edit my footage, reaching the point that I am at here.
Looking back I would have done a few things differently. These include shooting everything at one location, Meridian Business Park to save time and I would have addressed my editing software earlier to avoid last-minute issues like I did. Overall, I enjoyed making Midnight Run and had an awesome experience learning about film making from it.
At the very beginning, I knew I wanted to make the movie have something to do with cars so I decided to focus the first part of the production on researching movie genres that were related to cars, mainly the street racing genre. I looked at movies related to street racing such as the Fast and Furious franchise, Baby Driver, and others. In addition to these, I looked at other movies within the action genre that contained chase scenes. The movie Ronin was one that offered great insight with its magnificent BMW 535i. However, not being able to perform stunts on public roads what I was mainly interested in was capturing the aesthetic of street racing with a hint of crime thrown in. One show that helped in choosing angles and general choreography was the iconic anime Initial D, influenced by one of the pioneers of mountain pass racing (toūge).
This also influenced my decision to use my car as the focus of the opening, which is an old 1999 Toyota Corolla CE. Although it's pretty slow, I pretended like it was a sleeper (a normal car with a highly tuned engine) for the sake of the opening, and as an underlying joke to those who understand cars and racing. I then moved onto deciding my plot, which would involve two crooked mechanics who have the car in their shop. One wants to keep it, and the other is angered, saying it jeopardizes their side hustle. Agreeing but taking the car anyways, the mechanic sets out driving, on the run. For casting, I had the commitment of one of my classmates Dom to play the second mechanic. I thought I had the commitment of another friend as a cameraman but later on with the quarantine due to COVID-19 I had to depend on Dom and his tracking tripod. In addition to the tripod, I gathered other equipment and props such as tools and the cars jack and wrenches. For cameras, Dom and I used a GoPro Hero5 and our phones. As one of the props, I briefly contemplated a fake gun in a scuffle scene, but I wasn't sure how safe it would be since we would be shooting in a public place.
Moving onto the locations, I originally packed a handful of parking garages, parking lots, and rest stops, but quarantine narrowed down those options to just two locations: the first parking area on I-75 and Meridian Business Park. This would make it far easier to shoot as both locations are close to and within the city. Getting to shooting itself took some time. Both Dom and I for both our respective projects constantly had to postpone shooting due to several delays at first, and then because of quarantine. Eventually, we did get out and have two separate days of shooting. Both days went fairly successfully and we got good footage, but unfortunately, we could not get all of Dom's shots. After this was done, I got Adobe Premiere Pro and began to edit my footage, reaching the point that I am at here.
Looking back I would have done a few things differently. These include shooting everything at one location, Meridian Business Park to save time and I would have addressed my editing software earlier to avoid last-minute issues like I did. Overall, I enjoyed making Midnight Run and had an awesome experience learning about film making from it.
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