Tag Archives: production

Feb 27 2012

Lack Of A Better Name

This post is going to be all over the place in terms of what it covers, and as such I could not think of a good name for it, so for the lack of a better name, here we go!

All things video and photo have consumed my life. I feel as though everything I do now has some time back to film-making or photo-making. I’m not complaining; I’m so happy that this stuff has become what I do in life, but at the same time, film-making is one of the most time consuming careers/hobbies, and with so many things going on or ideas bouncing around in my head, it’s hard to feel in control of it all or find the time to make it all happen. I’m still trying to figure it all out and find that balancing point and hopefully I’ll be able to put out a History  Is…film for the competition since an actual monetary prize is up for grabs.

One thing that will ease up my workload is the fact that I finally finished my 365 Photo-A-Day project. It’s pretty amazing that I made it a full 365 days and didn’t miss a day. Some of the photos were crappy last minute ones but as a whole I am fairly proud of the results. It’s pretty incredible to look back on all the photos and be able to remember the day just based of that one photo. It’s a giant photo journal of one year of my life. That’s a pretty incredible feeling. And it ended with a bang! I couldn’t have imagined a better final 365 photoshoot. I went to Alki with Sean and Kayla. (Side note: I have been on an insane dubstep/chillstep/electronica/trance trip the last month; listening to the likes of Deadmau5, Nero, Skrillex, Kaskade, Blackmill, Bassnectar, etc etc. And if you look at some of the final images in my 365, you can definitely see that influence on the photos.) So Sean has a Deadmau5 head that lights up, and I wanted to get some crazy photos of it with Seattle in the background. The photos turned out incredible–if I can say that without sounding egotistical. It was great to be out there with two great friends on a perfectly beautiful night with the Seattle skyline floating above the waters. The music we had playing was perfect for the setting and it all just made me so thankful to live in a place like this. This whole thing was also an example of thinking up an idea and actually executing it. That one of my biggest flaws. I’ll have ideas but rarely take the necessary steps to get it done; especially cause I am so independent I’ll feel bad asking for help with something. But Kayla and I came up with the idea, and we called Sean to see if he would be down and he was. I was stoke they were both down for it and I couldn’t have done it without their help! Enough with the mushy sentiments though, if you would like to see the photos click here: flickr set


(Side Note #2: Dubstep/chillstep and so on is becoming one of my main sources of inspiration for videos. And now that I have the  program Twixtor–which allows me to convert my videos to 1000fps for super slow motion–some pretty insane images mixed with songs by Nero or Blackmill are racing through my head. I can’t wait to start putting the ideas down on film!)

Drama.Drama.Drama. In drama class we are now working on scene work. The final showing of my monologue went okay. The TA said I was holding back and not committing enough or connecting/embodying my character whole-heartedly. I can understand the TA’s critiques and suggestions he gives to me and other students, but I’m no actor at all so it’s hard for me to figure out how to put the critiques into action. I’ll try to connect more with my character in my scene, but I’m more looking forward to watching how the TA works with the other students to get the best performance out of them–which is what interests me most being a future filmmaker. Being eternally sick has not help my own performance in drama class either.

My internship at NFFTY is going fantastic! That psynap5e films video tag I made a while back has been modified for use in all their videos with their logo. That feels pretty cool. We are also working on a commercial idea to promote the festival that I will be helping film and edit soon. In previous internships I didn’t feel very productive–one, because I was constantly fighting a very  very very bad slow computer, and two, I wasn’t working the most interesting projects. But with this internship at NFFTY, each day I come in, I turn something around, whether it is a video, an animation, or an article for their blog. It feels great to have that kind of productivity and to be able to work on projects that are helping an amazing organization like NFFTY.

The final thing I want to babble on about in this post is a big take away I have had from my filming class with the graduate screen actors. In that class, Andrew, our professor, runs it like a tradition Hollywood set. We have most of the crucial roles like grips, gaffers, assistance camera ops, assistant directors, script supervisors, etc. I have helped with a couple video shoots outside of class where we didn’t have any of those roles–of which was most crucially a script supervisor. And it felt odd and like something was missing from set. All of the film projects I do now, I feel like they will need to have all of those roles filled. They are crucial to putting out quality work and to speeding up the efficiency of the shoot. Andrew’s process of how he runs a set and how he works with the actors is so polished that if I’m on a set that is not being run in a similar fashion, it feels odd and makes me want to take control and fix it all. This class has definitely helped me my way around a set, how a set should be run and it’s changed how I prep and plan for all my future video projects.

Feb 13 2012

‘Joey Got Raped’ – Filming Day

Today I got to help out with the filming of a new short called, ‘Joey Got Raped,’ that will be submitted to a couple festivals, including NFFTY. I got involved through an old friend, Tommy Yacoe. I knew him from way back in freshman year when I did the Husky Winter Sports. He is a filmmaker and I had done an interview of him and Champ Ensminger for the Daily’s Double Shot a while back too. Anyway, he emailed me asking if I was interested in helping out, specifically playing the role of ‘b-camera.’ So I was helping Tommy, who was the ‘a-camera’ and director of photography. [There’s a giant example of keeping up with people you meet and maintaining the those connections for different opportunities in the future. Networking!]

My call time to be on set was bright and early at 8am. The actors would be there at 9am. So I discussed the opening shots that we would be doing with Tommy, talking about the lighting and camera angles. Then helped them get the rest of the gear all set up and ready to shoot. The connection to this shoot and the stuff we have been doing in Andrew’s screen acting class was immense. The same kind of on-set vocab was being used and a lot of the same equipment. So I felt comfortable and familiar with it all. It was great being able to put the stuff I’ve been learning in class to practical use on a real-world indy film set.

It was a 15 page script, and we were able to get it all done today. Took from 9am to 5pm to shoot it all. Which is an impressive feat! It’s thanks much in part to the actors having rehearsed a lot, so they knew their lines extremely well. We also had three Canon 7D’s to film with. So that really sped up covering the different angles at once for each specific scene/shot.

It was a super fun day and a great learning experience. I can’t wait to see what the final edit turns out like.

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(Also I should explain, the title: ‘Joey Got Raped’ while, yes, it does deal with someone who has been raped, the rape is never shown, just talked about….only its just that it is talked about in a very racy and crude humor fashion. All in good fun for some good laughs.)

Feb 7 2012

Got the NFFTY Internship!

Andrew told us about an internship opportunity at NFFTY, the National Film Festival for Talented Youth. http://www.nffty.org/ It was a Filmmaker Relations and Video Editing internship. I had my interview for it today and I got the gig.

So for this internship I will be doing the following:

  • Film and Edit video content for NFFTY.org
  • Organize and Archive festival video footage
  • Seek out talented young filmmakers from around the world via Vimeo and other online platforms
  • Convert and Export timelines for NFFTY film screenings
  • Monitor and update content schedule
  • Follow film/entertainment news sites and post daily news
  • Write blog articles and featured stories
  • Help maintain blog and video player
  • General office assistance and other tasks as needed
  • Assistance during festival as needed

In less formal words, I will be creating the graphics for the festival and the trailers for the films to be screened at the festival. As well as writing blog blurbs about film news and NFFTY news.

It’s fantastic! It’s a great opportunity to network with a bunch of young filmmakers as well as pro filmmakers during the festival. It’ll look great on my resume and I’ll have some work that I’ve created for it that I can take with me in the future. I’ll learn a bunch of great networking skills working with the professionals in the industry during the festivals too. Another great perk is that they are letting me submit a film into the festival and waiving the entry fee! Sweet! So excited!

Feb 7 2012

Backstory w/ UWTV, Monologue work

On Wednesday of last week, Andrew gave us the opportunity to go be on set with him during his filming of his UWTV show, Backstory. The studio was in the basement of Kane Hall. That was a surprise! I never knew that place existed down there. It was incredible, and the studio was well-equipped with professional cameras and lighting racks hanging from the ceiling. When we got there, Andrew introduced us, then proceeded to explain the set up and how the morning would go. Andrew shows us how the lighting and set design of the studio was purposely set up to create great depth and dynamic range in the background when the camera was on the guest. We got to see how the 3-camera coverage set up worked as well. After they finished filming we chatted with the crew learning how they got to where they are now and little tips and tricks they use on set. It was a great learning experience on the technical side of the production process.

Also last Tuesday, I had to perform my monologue in front of my Drama 251 section. It was incredibly nerve-racking. I’m not a performer and have never been a good speaker in front of people. But I was able to get through and the TA said I did a good job. He had a couple critiques for me and had me run through it a second time.  It was better the second time around. It was a big confidence booster. Knowing I could act out a monologue in front of so many eyes, I feel more confident in my own speaking and communication skills, which will come in handy when being interviewed and or working with actors or anything that comes up later in my filming career. It was also great watching the TA work with the other students to enhance their performance, experimenting with different ways of doing the monologue. It was definitely a great experience in learning how to get the best performance out of an actor.

 

Jan 27 2012

Al Borland and Filming Day 1

Wednesday was an incredible day. It was the first day that we got to actually film a scene with graduate actors in the studio in the basement of the Penthouse Theater. I knew Andrew was bringing in a guest speaker to talk to us CineMedia students and the actors before we began filming, but I never put a name to the face. Boy, was I in for a surprise when I showed up to class and saw Andrew chatting with Richard Karn, aka Al Borland from Home Improvement. That was one of my favorite shows to watch as a kid growing up and now Al Borland was taking his time to sit down and chat with us–a small group of 12 college students. He was a very personable and down to earth fellow. It was fascinating listening to his stories about how he got into acting and working on Home Improvement–the very long road from theater to TV. But all the connections he had made and made sure to keep because he never knew where they could take him was inspiring, and it showed the importance of connecting and networking with everyone possible in this industry. You meet the right person and either at that moment or later on down the road, that person could jump start your career in to what you always dreamed it would be. [Learning Goal 4]. Listening to Andrew and Richard go back and forth on stories from when they worked together on Home Improvement was exciting. I didn’t know Andrew had directed several episodes of the show. It’s incredible that we get to learn under such  an experienced  and accomplished director. The fact that he was directing in Hollywood on national shows like Home Improvement and now he’s chosen to teach us 5 CineMedia students is incredible. I am very grateful.

Once Richard’s time was up, we got to work on the scene we would be filming that day. Andrew assigned us different crew duties–sound, assistant director, assistant camera, script supervisor, and camera operator. I was camera operator for the day. But I also got to help set up the sound and lighting for the scene. Actually getting to work on a set like this, with the different duties and the equipment is definitely going to help me become comfortable and skilled in all the different duties I might encounter on a typical film set. [Learning Goal 2] I’m a photographer and so getting to work with the camera and set up the camera’s shot as photographically appealing and keeping it that way while the actors moved around set was challenging but definitely fun.

Aside from the technical production side of the day, it was great to finally get to watch Andrew work with the actors and direct the seen. Andrew has an idea of where he wants the story to go and how he would like the actors to stage it, but he works with them with a very open mind. He asks them to run through the scene without any direction from him at first. Then he comes in an asks them questions about how they felt during the scene, what they could do differently to convey how their character would feel or react in the scene, how can they convey more of the story through their actions when there isn’t dialogue. Talking with Nav after class about this, he had a great metaphor for this method. ‘It’s like a rough sketch at first, and then the artist [Andrew] comes in and redraws a line there, erases a line there, adds a shade there until the sketch is molded into a beautiful finished product.’ Being able to observe how Andrew works through the art of story with his actors is a great experience. [Learning Goal 3]

Later that day, I went to Nav’s film club–Spirit Through Film–where we decided to try and film a short film during the club’s meeting time. With so many people in the club, the collaboration process and the production process was a bit chaotic to say the least. But having just finished class with Andrew right before, I was able to use some of Andrew’s methods to gain control over the situation and direct people for certain responsibilities and get a general work flow going smoothly. It felt good being able to take what I was learning in Andrew’s class and apply it directly to a situation on our set in the film club–real world application. I’m definitely gaining more confidence in my on set abilities and my ability to collaborate with actors and crew to produce the end product that we are working toward.

I still can’t believe this is my major and these are my classes. It doesn’t feel like a class. I’m so excited for what’s in store.

All of Us with Richard Karn...aka Al Borland