There is a wide range of steps that go into making any film. Pre-production alone can take up to six months on feature-length films. The labor dedicated to bringing the director's vision to life can take over a year on long form projects. From concept to final cut, the process is simultaneously abstract and technical, demanding unique contributions from every member of the team. It is the director's job to make a film as entertaining as it can possibly be. This is done through careful planning put into the pre-production which is carried through to on-set production and post-production. The culmination of this hard work is the final film, but the process of making a film from the director's point of view can be seen through an important document known as the director's notebook. In a director's notebook, the creative process is captured through all the steps that go into making a film. The purpose of this creative project is to show the entire process of writing and directing a short film by documenting each step in a director's notebook to be shared alongside the final film, Shutter's Affection. Shutter's Affection is a narrative piece aiming to dissect the thought processes behind a serial killer. In this short, a photographer named Martin lives a blissful perfect life with his girlfriend, but soon finds his relationship with her isn't like it is in the photos he's captured of other couples going through their day to day activities. The director's notebook of Shutter's Affection documents all the steps of the creative process, from conception to shooting script, storyboard, and beyond.

My creative project is a feature-length screenplay called Welles. It follows Orson Welles' struggle to get Citizen Kane exhibited .The overarching idea that I wanted to explore within this project is the blatantly self-destructive nature that Welles exhibited in his personal life, all in an attempt to reach his creative/professional goals.

"The Art of Humans Being" is a feature length screenplay in the same vein as an original Pixar animated script. The story takes place in New York City, and focuses on our heroine, 13-year-old high school senior and certifiable genius, Lu, and our hero, 17-year-old high school senior of average smarts, Finn. We are first introduced to these characters as they struggle with fitting in both at school and in their lives at home. Lu and Finn feel a disconnect with their families, but both share a common appreciation for art and the escape it provides. Though her entire family is involved in artistic and creative pursuits, Lu has never painted a day in her life but dreams of one day being a great artist. Finn, on the other hand, has inherited his deceased mother’s immense talent with a paintbrush, but is hesitant to live in her shadow. Upon seeing their desire to paint, their high school art teacher—Miss Ro—encourages Finn and Lu to enter the world-renowned art competition Palette Parfaite, created by the famous French artist Madame Inès. In order to enter this art competition, contestants must dive inside a painting. As such, Lu and Finn are forced to literally enter the art world. Once inside the painting, they are introduced to colorful characters, stunning landscapes, and an entire studio of art materials that can only be described as every artists’ dream. However, the more time they spend inside the painting, the sooner Lu and Finn realize that this dreamlike world is not quite what it seems. "The Art of Humans Being" seeks to explore the world of art through the following questions: What happens to the forgotten art that has been discarded after being deemed “not good enough” to be finished? What happens to human beings who are treated the same? And finally, what happens when we accept people for who they are and what they create, even if they have flaws; even if they’re still works in progress?

My thesis provides an in-depth analysis of the Tarantinoverse, a shared universe in which most of Quentin Tarantino's movies exist. I start by talking about the relationships between characters across different movies and how Tarantino portrays them. I examine how he has some characters who are brothers and some characters who have ancestral relationships with other characters. I also observe how two characters in separate movies are the same person and that there is one non-familial relationship within Tarantino's shared universe. Next, I investigate the two distinct universes that make up the Tarantino's cinematic universe, the "realer than real" universe and the "movie" universe. In that section, I explain how he uses crossover characters, who can exist in both the "realer than real" and "movie" universes and how they represent different types of people that exist within both universes. Then I examine fictional products that are exclusive to Tarantino's shared universe. In that segment, I examine how Tarantino critiques the way other filmmakers use product placement in their movies and the way movies are used to market products. After that, I discuss how Tarantino's alteration of history in Inglourious Basterds, namely Adolf Hitler's death, affected the society of Tarantino's movies with respect to popular culture and violence. Regarding pop culture, I examine how Tarantino's characters use pop culture references, how frequently they used them, and what they reference in Tarantino's movies set before Hitler's death and contrast those with the same three aspects in movies set after Hitler's death. Finally, I inspect on how Tarantino uses violence within his movies and contrast how he uses it in movies before Hitler's death and how he uses it in movies set after Hitler's death.

My creative project was the (aptly named) "Sketch Show," short series of sketches presented in order without greater context or structure. I challenged myself to push the limits of my creativity and be involved in every aspect of the production. I wrote, directed, shot, edited, acted, scored, and color graded 3 sketches. I chose sketch comedy as my genre of focus because it is one that I have loved my whole life, and wanted to try my hand at. My research process was expansive, as I studied many of the great sketch shows and tried to learn what makes them successful. I next wrote many sketches, and they were almost uniformly terrible. My rewrite and selection phase was very difficult as I struggled to identify which of my sketches were working best, and I still question the decisions I made. Regardless, the shooting process began and I continued to push myself through cinematography and especially acting, something I have the least experience in by far. I had acted in theatre in high school, but I quickly learned this was completely different and struggled to give myself the performance I had in my head. Finally in the edit, where I am most comfortable, I pushed myself one step further to score the project, something I had never done before. "Sketch Show" may not have turned out to be the project I intended, but it taught me more about writing and myself than any project ever has.

Fringe: Abstract Fringe is a feature length screenplay and a work of original science fiction. The story takes place in the future, on a planet far from Earth but it is told from the human perspective and is meant to draw into question many issues present in society today: prejudice, hatred, multiculturalism, war, and social division. The screenplay seeks to pose an allegorical relationship between the humanity living on the planet, and the enemies they face, and the present day conflict between America and the Middle East or ISIS. The story follows Miles as he is forced to ally with his sworn enemy, the Lue, and learn to fight together to save his world from destruction. Miles begins the film bitter, resentful, and filled with prejudice towards his foes, much like a majority of Americans today. Instead of focussing on that conflict though, my story unites these two bitter enemies and asks them to put aside their violent and hateful pasts to fight a new, more powerful foe together. As the events unfold my characters learn that their enemies can be just like them and that they have something valuable to offer their world. My screenplay is about finding commonality with the enemy, on both sides of a conflict. By the end of my tale, Miles learns that there is good to be found in the world, even in his sworn enemies, if he looks close enough. It may seem like an archetypal plot on the surface but I worked hard to create a world that has not been seen in film before, an original science fiction universe that can bring these issues into the light and entertain an audience while doing so. I feel that my screenplay does just that, offering entertainment with and edge of social commentary, and stays true to the science fiction form.

As the Hispanic community is expanding, television networks need to find or create content that can be distributed successfully in Latin America and the United States. To discover what can be sold internationally, this study is divided into three parts: Content, Sale and Distribution. In Section II (Content), what is selling in both the United States and Latin America was analyzed. Since telenovelas have been the most popular form of television entertainment in Latin America, telenovelas from the 80s to the present were investigated. Telemundo (owned by NBC) and Univision (owned by Univision Communications and Televisa Entertainment from Mexico) are the two most established networks broadcasting in Spanish in the US. Factors in Telemundo's ratings success were studied to determine whether "series" in Spanish were becoming the new form of telenovelas. Produced format sells for telenovelas in Spanish that derive from television shows in English were analyzed based on their content and success. English television shows that derive from telenovelas in Spanish were evaluated based on their reception by the Hispanic community in the US. In Section III (What to Sell?), suggestions on a new content are made based on the previous analysis. Section IV (Distribution) examines the rise of internet streaming services such as Netflix. This section comments on whether networks should distribute their content in streaming services vs. traditional network outlets.

My thesis is comprised of three components: the first is the short film, “State of Grace.” The second is a Project Portfolio of my films produced from May 2016 – April 2017; this document includes concept notes for each project, visual inspirations, shot lists, storyboards, and budget breakdowns. The individual video URLs are included at the end of the portfolio. The third component is a video showcasing each of those projects in a demo reel.

The short film, “State of Grace,” is about a woman who reminisces about a past relationship on a night drive. The memories of this relationship compel her to show up at his door. The title, “State of Grace,” is a reference to the character’s emotional state. She is unable to move forward with a new relationship because she is still in love with her ex-boyfriend; however, her ex-boyfriend has moved on and she cannot reclaim that love. The title also refers to the struggle of reconciling love with heartbreak. The film is predominantly silent, accompanied by a piano driven score that reflects the character’s state of mind. The project is highly imagistic, intercutting between happy memories of the couple and the woman driving alone. The piece ends with the character at her ex-boyfriend’s door, intending to tell him she’s still in love with him. She changes her mind when she realizes he isn’t alone. The production influences are described in greater detail in the Project Portfolio.

“ACT1” is the brand I’ve assigned to my films. The Project Portfolio includes concept notes for each of the seven projects I’ve produced, directed, and edited in the past year (May 2016 – April 2017). In addition to a written description of the creative influences on the project, I’ve included my visual inspirations for each piece. All of the films are silent, feature slow motion photography, and are accompanied by original music. The visual expression of emotion inspires most of my work, along with connections in human relationships. Overall, my films have a cinematic, surreal aesthetic, experimenting with ethereal lighting and high frame rates. The shot lists and storyboards are included for most of the projects, along with an itemized budget breakdown. Since I’m most inspired by imagery, my shooting style is improvisational—none of my films have formal screenplays. Intercutting and jump cuts are frequent editing techniques in my projects, including the demo reel.

I edited the reel, connecting the different projects via match cuts whenever possible. The match cuts are on similar composition, content, or camera motion. The music is original and synth-heavy. The title animation features parallax overlays and lens flares to reference the surreal aesthetics in my films.

While studying in Japan, I became fascinated by the variety shows my roommates would watch. These shows featured a flexible format with comedians and other entertainers participating in a wide variety of activities. For my senior creative project, I decided to determine what features were essential to Japanese variety shows, and to then use these features to create my own program.
In order to determine the essential features of Japanese variety television, I watched a total of 22 episodes of three popular Japanese variety shows: Gaki no tsukai ya arahende (ダウンタウンのガキの使いやあらへんで! Usually abbreviated as ガキの使い), London Hearts (ロンドンハーツ), and Utaban (うたばん). I chose these three shows because of their differing styles, popular comedic hosts, and impressive longevity, with a combined 58 years of runtime. Through my research, I was able to assemble the analyses of basic and technical features found in the next section of this document in addition to several pages of my own notes used to design my original program.
My own program, American Joke (アメリカンジョーク), is meant to be filmed in America featuring an entirely Japanese cast. The main idea of the show is to capitalize on the comedic potential of cultural differences by having Japanese comedians interact with American people and traditions.
In order to showcase the show, I filmed a short “sizzle reel” video featuring Japanese exchange students as the cast. Segments filmed included our “comedians” learning the high jump from ASU track athletes, bringing Japanese fermented soybeans to campus for American students to taste, and participating in an American-themed quiz show.