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Ripple Effect

I was the Producer, Director of Photography/Camera Operator, and drone operator for the Audience Choice award winning short film for night 1 of the Fortnight Competition at the Capital City Film Festival, Ripple Effect.

Cinematography

Reel of best shots from ripple effect

The challenge with this shot was getting the pure darkness behind Winslow while keeping him lit properly. The idea was the darkness of the background was to symbolize where he's at mentally and emotionally with the candles to symbolize hope for Winslow.

Besides being absolutely stunning, this shot serves as a precursor to Winslow having a meeting with an indescript being to give him a reality check. I wanted to show Winslow in a state of defeat and desolation all while being in a familiar place.

Producing

Locations

As Producer, I decided on locations and served as a location scout.

The first part was deciding on the outdoors section. We had three options to choose from.

-The Banks of the Red Cedar River on the MSU Campus

-Crego Park in Lansing, MI

-Frances Park in Lansing, MI

Ultimately we decided on Crego Park because of the dock on the water.

The dock served as a central location that had the ability to stand out and be iconic to our film specifically. Along with that, it allowed for us to use the water as scenery for the film to allow for the main character to appear desolate when needed.

The second part was getting a location to have for Winslow and his girlfriend to have their argument. During writing we decided on a restaurant. The restuarant provided a natural place for them to have a conversation while being able to have the shock value of the slap be more impactful.

Thankfully I knew some people who managed a restaurant, so I was able to get the location with relative ease.

Planning

After finalizing the script and finalizing locations, I was in charge of planning production.

Because this is a student film, we had to get creative working around all of our busy schedules.

We completed the film in three separate shoots.

We were able to use the restaurant past close so finding time to shoot that was rather easy and allowed for us to not have to worry about class times.

We shot at the park on a class day, with cast and crew in and out of the shoot throughout the period of shooting. Ultimately it worked out and we were able to acquire the coverage needed to put together the film

Writing

While I didn't write the script, I helped come up with the ideas that led us to what we had. We found three separate times to ideate and come up with an idea. We wanted something biblical at first, which led us to Winslow being alone at the river as well as him jumping through memories and space.