TKO MORE LIKE RKO

Background of RKO Studios

RKO stands for Radio-Keith-Orpheum which was created in October of 1928. The studio was created when the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theatre chain and Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America were merged together and brought under the control of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). David Sarnoff planned and supervised merge to create the studio, eventually giving the studio to Floyd Odlum. In its creation, RKO Studios was one of the Big Five in Hollywoods Golden Age

and was very successful. Overall, the creation of the studio under David Sarnoff was to compete with the introduction and rising popularity of movies with sound and talking. Its first few decades were successful but as time progressed, their popularity fell. In 1957 RKO Studios ceased production due to disarray and a decline in work and eventually dissolved in 1959. Eventually in 1981 the studio was revived by broadcaster RKO General and was eventually sold in 1989 becoming a small independent company under the new title RKO Pictures LLC.

Shining Stars

While RKO Studios is rarely heard of today producing new films, they did, however, produce some of the most famous and influential films in history: Citizen Kane and King Kong. They also helped coproduce other very popular films like It's a Wonderful Life and Notorious, even helping Walt Disney is making Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Fantasia. Some other movies they produced were Little Women, The Body Snatcher and the live action of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Along with some very influential and popular movies they also had very well-known actors from that time working with them. They produced musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers while also having actors like Katharine Hepburn, Robert Mitchum, and Cary Grant. RKO Studios also had some producers and directors working with them as well like Val Lewtons. While they were very prosperous in Old Hollywood they were sadly unable to find the same success in today world.

Get With The Times 

As mentioned in the first paragraph, RKO Studios in now a smaller independent studio and doesn't produce well know movies anymore.  The last movies that the studio released were A Late Quartet which got good reviews and was well liked in 2012 and Barely Lethal which flopped and did not succeed in 2015. One of the more well known recent releases by the studio is Are We There Yet? which was very comedic but didn't receive good reviews as well. Overall, RKO Studios is not what it used to be ad doesn't show any signs of returning to its former glory.

BASICALLY A MUSIC VIDEO PRODUCER

Hit With Inspiration 

When I found out that we were doing a music video I got so excited. That night I went home and went through all my playlists to find a good song where I had a clear concept for the video. In my search I found the song "Talia" by King Princess. The moment I heard the song I had a vision of a relationship where they had broken up and the singer is still in pain from the split so she would be shown in darker colors like blues and purples. Shots of the singer would then be broken up by shots of flashbacks to the relationship and the memories that they had together, being depicted in lighter colors like yellows and light oranges with a little bit of a fuzzy feel. I came in the next day to class and shared my idea and once I did the others were all for it with one person needing a little bit persuasion. Once we has the concept, song and roles picked out we moved to pre-production.

Creating Heartbreak

The roles we decided on were me as director, Shelby as editor even though we all worked together in editing, Marco as cinematographer, and Cas as art director. Pre-production was a crazy time because there were so many ideas flying and there was one person who also has a very strong leadership personality which caused so conflict. We had all decided on the concept that I had originally presented so all we had to do was decided on locations, costumes, shots, and actors. We got Kayla which is friends with most of the group to be the second person in the video while I was the singer. We then started talking about locations and choice to have the flashbacks take place mainly outside in a beach area as well as in some fields and bedroom. For the beach area and field we used Cas's grandmothers backyard since lived right off a lake and used my house for the bedroom. For the singer we placed her in the bedroom where the flashbacks took place while as taking a couple shots of the singer at the beach area as well. After we decided on the color scheme, actors, and locations we started to work on the filmscape which was a great way to illustrate what we wanted the shots to look like and give us a visual. Once the filmscape was completed we began filming.

Capturing Love and Despair 

Actually filming as pretty hectic because we filmed on a Sunday night in three and a half hours. While it was crazy we got some good shots and everything looked good. We utilized a light kit to create the colors for the singer shots but we had to create our own gels due to the actually being missing. The colors turned out good and we got beautiful shots in general so it was a successful shooting day. Post-Production was a long process that took about a full week maybe a few more days. We started off putting the shots in the order we wanted but there being so much footage and ideas about how they should be placed and what should go where took a little time. We had decided to try and match the cuts with the beat which is a cool touch since it isn't to obvious but it's there. Once we finally finished putting all the shots in order we went through and started stabilizing shots. We wish we could've stabilized more but when we added the affect it looked warped and didn't look good but we thought it was okay because the little unstable ones adds to the video. After we stabilized what we could we went back and color corrected and brightened shots. In the singer footage we decided to use only blue for the footage so we had to through and take out the purple and green we had in there originally and add a blue tint to the outdoors ones without having it look weird. For the flashbacks we brightened them to give a vintage type feel and added some yellows. Once the coloring was done, the video was done.

Life Lessons

Throughout the project, I learned that sometimes you'll have to turn down peoples ideas because they don't add anything to the video or they don't make sense. There was also the lesson of all the ideas can't be mine, I have to be able to find the balance between incorporating others ideas and turning them down nicely. Another lesson is that sometimes people will try and take over your position and get on your nerves but you can't be mean to them because they're in their group. Along with learning these lessons I was able to use the 5 Guarantees. I used leadership to guide what the group needs to do to make the video good and what the video as a whole will look like. This also goes along with communication not just with the group but also with Kayla who I had to talk to about what to except from filming day. Collaboration was used in order to get along with everyone and make sure that everyone had a chance to share there thoughts, this was very evident especially during editing. Project management was on point because we got Pre-Production done with filming, we got filming done on time which allowed us to get a heard start on editing which allowed us to get the whole project done one time. We had set a schedule for ourselves and we were able to stick with it. Technical skills on my part, I believe were strong and I learned a lot on the color side of editing as well.

Moving on to the Future

Overall, I think this project went really well and turned out really well; I am very proud of the finished product. One thing I would've done differently would have been to have a longer time to shoot so it wouldn't be as stressful and we got make sure we got all the shots. On the other hand most things I would've kept the same, especially when it comes to picking a concept I am very passionate about. To enhance my next project I while remember to be nice and collaborate well with others in order to continue working as a group and to make sure everyone is putting in input.