#toutinegra

[alexmartinho]

For my Final Major Project, I wanted to experiment with different types of shots, from wide to close-ups, and with different perspectives. I wanted my film to feel dynamic and fun with the different ranges of shots I used. The first shots of the film are wide shots, as those captured better the feel of Alentejo vast plains. After introducing the boy, Francisco, jump between close-ups, mid shots and medium long shots to show his facial expressions and emotions, but still using long shots to show better his action and the space around him. 

Even though part of my film is in the boy imagination, I wanted to keep the space around him faithful to reality, as you see in the Research folder on my blog. 

Unfortunately for the hand-in my Composer wasn’t able to finish the music for my film. So I used the piece, “lil’ bamboo”, from the film “Tales of Princess Kaguya”, because the song is similar to what I want for my film and shows better the how light-heart and simple I want the music to sound. 

[alexmartinho]

Even though the shepherd only appears in one shot, I wanted him to wear the traditional clothes of shepherds in Alentejo. 

The clothes of Chico were inspired by this old picture I found of my dad as a child, from other photos I saw most Portuguese kids wore these types of clothes, with the high socks to the knees inspired in Scouts uniforms.

[alexmartinho]

Even though my dad spent part of his childhood in the city of Portalegre in Alentejo (bottom image), I decided that the film would be better passed in the more country-side, far away from the city. I wanted most of my shots to have the feel of the vast plains of Alentejo.

[alexmartinho]

I wanted the house of the character to have the feel of a Portuguese countryside, so I searched the typical houses of Alentejo. I tried to design the house as close as possible to the references I found, drawing it in a quite simple way and using the traditional colors of white and blue for the colored version.

[alexmartinho]

The credits for my film. I decided to write everything in my film in a child-like manner, since the film protagonist is a child. For the credits I have different shots that are connected to the film, the first one being the second establishing of my film. The second image on my credits is a book with 2 pictures. The first one is the name of the bird that the boy follows around during the film and that gives the name to the film, and the second image is a map of Portugal, the non-shade area being were the film is passed, theres a small cross near the city where my dad passed part of his childhood.

[alexmartinho]

First finished version of my film.

[alexmartinho]

3rd establishing shots with some changes, I thought that the earlier version looked to busy and the lines to dark, so I changed to thinner lines and some details in the background and less movement in the hill closer to the camera. I also added a bird flying in to the fence, to tie it to the previous shot.

[alexmartinho]