All Work and No Cable...

Hey all!
So I just realized that I have absolutely nothing to write about for this week (since I lack cable and haven't had the time to catch up on hulu), except for my P&D project. I'd been looking forward to this project since the summer, when I saw the finished product of a friend's project, but I had no idea how difficult it was to pull off this project and do it well.
The Requirements:
Must utilize both studio and b-roll
*2 people in the studio the day of your project
Must have more than one set in the studio
Total run time between 3 and 5 minutes.

*We had to find out own talent for this project, unlike other classes where your talent comes from other students in your class, my class only has 8 people, so it's necessary for us to find our own talent.

The requirements seemed easy enough, but the project was surprisingly difficult. The biggest problem my class had was not the production itself, but finding talent. Suddenly, this project turned into "who has the better friends willing to come in for class at 8am with you," and every class someone had a different story of how they had to call in the weirdest favors to get people to help out with their projects. But unfortunately, the people who had the most difficulty finding people also had (in my opinion) the lowest quality projects, since they spent the majority of their time locating talent. I decided to take a different approach. The day this project was assigned, since my Tuesdays and Thursdays are completely free other than my class, I spent the entire day designing my sets and scripting my shots, then once that was done, found my talent.

So after weeks of preparation, it was the day for my project. I got up at 6, was in the studio by 7, and by 8:45, I was ready for my 3 takes. And I'm pretty sure I'd never been so ADD in all my life, every time someone needed something, I would get sidetracked and would go help them, to make sure everything was done right. And from the first rehearsal, I noticed a huge flaw in my script: my shot pacing was WAY too fast. Compared to the other projects in my class (mine was second to last) their pacing was at a much more comfortable speed, and since I spent most of my time calling shots, I couldn't even focus on making sure the cameras had their shots lined up before taking them (oops!)

Luckily, shooting the B-roll was the easy (and really fun) part. Since there was no need for audio, I was able to get some friends together to just have some shots of them being silly around campus. And the biggest thing I've learned from this project: Have good friends. Without them, the entire project could have gone up in flames.

"Les Miserables 25th Anniversary Concert" PBS coverage

Over spring break I watched the "Les Miserables 25th Anniversary Concert" on PBS. Although I've watched many of the shows that this station has covered on Great Performances and other programs, I was completely blown away by this special. Since theatre is most powerful when it is seen live in the audience, I did not expect to be as moved as I was by this televised event. Though the actors were of course phenomenal and the music itself is timeless, I believe it was the coverage and camera work that added to the overall feel of this piece. The cameras were cut with such precision that the viewer never got bored of seeing a singular shot for too long. I know this has a lot to do with studio production since it was directed from a remote truck, many of the features such as interviews and backstage tours can be viewed as field production.