8 Things I Learned From Making A Short Film

This is it... Last blog post of the year. I'm not saying I've looked forward to this day since the first blog post, but... yeah. Just kidding, Arturo (please don't fail me)! I had a lot of fun with my last blog post (100% because of the GIFs), and since we're nearing towards the final days of Fiction Field I, I felt like wrapping things off with some valuable lessons I've learned, assisted by the power of moving images. So here we go.

8 Things I Learned From Making A Short Film

1. Choose Your Positions Wisely

You're finally in your groups, and it's time to decide what you're going to contribute to the film. STOP. Before you go volunteering for a position, think. How much work do I actually want to do? Do I want to be responsible for the failure of this film? Do I know anything about lights? Am I organized enough to catch every single continuity issue there is? Thankfully, each member of my team were equally competent in their positions and we learned a lot along the way. But, looking back, I probably shouldn't have volunteered for three positions. Although it was extremely rewarding, I don't think I've ever been this exhausted in my entire life.

2. Always Pick Comedy

Just kidding. But seriously, really think about the type of movie you want to make before you decide. Think you can handle talking about suicide, murder and depression for four months? Are you sure? You can try as hard as you might to crack jokes on set, but trust me, it'll start to weigh you down.

In the end, you might have something that will leave an impact in your audience, but be prepared to accidentally become the most morbid person in your creative writing class.

3. Don't Do Anything Embarrassing

This, unfortunately, is inevitable. But if you can avoid it, try. On a film set, inside jokes at the expense of others is a long, grueling experience. Extremely hilarious when it's someone else, maybe not so much when it's you. If you do something worthy of your ridicule, you can be almost certain that you're going to hear about it every single day, of every single shoot.

It's one of the only things that keeps the group together and no one kills anyone. So maybe think twice before you clap the slate in the actress' ear, or don't lose your pants the night before a shoot. But if you do, thank you for your sacrifice for the cause.

4. Birthdays Don't Matter

Prepare for your best friends, roommates or parents to hate you if their birthday happens to fall during production season. Doesn't matter if they're Jesus, thou shalt not party on a shoot night.

But hey, if it's your or a crew member's birthday, cake on set is ALWAYS appreciated.

Thanks for being born, Paul.

5. Take Lots of Naps

All nighters are going to happen. More than once. When post production rolls around, you're going to forget what going to bed before the sun comes up feels like. The only good thing about this is that your other professors may let you slide on a few assignments due to your new zombie-like nature.

So if you have a chance to fit in a nap, take it. Squeeze in an hour in between classes, or put your head down at the library for a few minutes during a study break. Doesn't matter where, but trust me, you'll need it.

6. Keep Your Cool

Tension will thicken and tempers will rise. This is what happens when seven extremely different personalities are forced to work together for four months straight, running low on sleep, food and sanity. If you are a producer or director, it is especially important for you to keep calm during these times. People are going to snap and mental breakdowns will happen, and as tempting as it is to join in the anger and misery, you have to pull through and mediate the situations.

The storm will pass, and when it does, you'll be in a much better place if you didn't punch your crew members in the face.

7. Make Sure You Like Pizza

This will be your diet for the next few months or so. Maybe you'll get some bagels and coffee in the morning on a good day, but most likely it will be frozen pizza from the night before. So suck it up, and accept the cheesy goodness that is shitty delivery pizza.

8. Appreciate Your Crew Members

Your crew is like your family. Probably more so since you spend way more time with them than anyone else. Everything you do affects the group, and you can't do much without them. And just like family, they may get on your nerves, and you'll most likely get on theirs, but at the end of the day you have to love them. This semester, I had one of the greatest groups I could ask for. I made so many friends and memories, and created something I was truly proud of. Without them, this semester could have gone horribly wrong, and I thank each of them for not kicking me out (yet). Shout out to the members of Team Falcon (Patricia, Paul, Amelia, Kelly, Mike and David) for all of the hours and hard work that you put in and sacrificing their lives to create a twenty minute short film about butterflies. I love you all!

Now all we have to do is survive the premiere...

Why Binge Watching is Better

Our whole lives we are taught that you can't do it all in a night. You shouldn't wait until the last minute. Don't stress yourself out by doing it all at once. That is great advice for things like big projects or studying for an exam, and some people will say the same sort of things about watching a television show. They'll tell you that you should watch each new episode when it premieres and then wait until until next week to find out what happens.  They may try and tell you that it's unhealthy to stay up into the wee hours of the night watching just one more episode, which we all know really means 4 more episodes, but here are the top three reasons I think it's better for you to take a whole weekend to watch an entire season of a show.

More emotionally connected

One of the things that draws you into a show and keeps you hooked is having a connection to the characters. No one wants to watch a show about someone they can't relate to. When you watch an entire season back to back you allow yourself to get to know a character on a whole different level than if you were to watch it as it premieres. You allow yourself to be fully immerse into the life of this character. You're allowing yourself to react to situations in real time with the characters. Emotions are always strongest when they are raw and that's what binge watching allows. You don't have time to logically think out how you feel. Your reaction is pure emotion the way a characters reaction would be.

Better understanding of the storyline

We all keep up with a lot of shows, especially if you're a TVR major like myself. Everyone has at least 10 shows to tell you about when you ask "what's your favorite show?" It's a lot to keep track of from season to season or even episode to episode. However if you watch each episode of a season back to back, you don't have time to forget. It's easier to remember what happened in the last episode when the last episode was just watched a few minutes ago. You'll have an easier time remembering small characters who only show up once in a blue moon because it won't have been that long since their last appearance.

Cliff hangers aren't as stressful

Life can be stressful. You've got your job, friends, classes, family, a significant other, and who knows what else piled high on your mind. You don't need the stress of a cliffhanger television episode weighing on your mind all week. When binge watching, this isn't an issue because the resolution to the cliff hanger is right there. All you have to do is press play and wait for the video to load. You don't have to daydream in class all the possible outcomes. You don't have to lay in bed and panic for the wellbeing of your favorite character. Just relax and find out what happens next


So next time you get hooked on a show, don't feel bad about watching that next episode right after it. Go ahead, stay in bed for a week straight and do nothing but watch an entire series. You deserve it.

End of the year

I decided I was going to change up the last post and just say how much I learned in the class and how much I enjoyed it.

To start I think Arturo Sinclair is incredibly knowledgable about the subject he teaches. I thoroughly believe that I got the most out of this class than any other class i took in TV/R. Learning about being a perfectionist and striving to make the best films we possibly can. I was inspired by the class and I am excited to continue my film journey. Thank you again Arturo for being such an open teacher and and being critical because it definitely pays off. I guarantee that I will being using almost every one of your life lessons in any future production I make. Have a great end of the year.

P.S. I have states tomorrow (Saturday May 4 all day) and will not be able to make the screenings.

Final Project in Review

When we started our final projects over a month ago I really did not know what to expect. I latched onto an idea that I found interesting in class and went from there. I was assigned to write the script with two of my classmates Rob and Kofi. Admittedly, we would consider ourselves amateur script writers. After 2 weeks of writing we came up with a 35 page script called the Face Off. Was 35 pages too long for a fiction field final? In retrospect, yes, but I think the theme of this project was that I was learning on the fly. I am proud of the script that the three of us wrote and I think had we were allotted more time than we could of have followed it more closely. Production was also a huge learning experience for me. Finding locations, talent, costumes, and set pieces, was an exciting new venture me. Also, creating the set with proper lighting, audio, and continuity was a challenge. Some scenes went better than others. Most notably our debate scene which we held in the Park auditorium was looking fantastic. However, we ran out of time for our reservation for the room. Being only a handful of days before editing was to take place, we could not re-shoot the scene. Instead, we had to choose a new location, cut a big chunk of our script, and stay up much later than I think anyone in the group planned to finish the production. This served as another valuable lesson: always have a backup plan, and think quickly on your feet. The next part of this experience that I was able to learn from was editing. The editing process was an interesting one. By interesting I mean exhausting, staying up through all hours of the night and into the morning to get our film edited correctly. I tip my hat to Jarred and Breanne for their dedication throughout the editing process. That basically leaves us where we are now, audio mixing our project so it is ready to go for the screening on saturday. As we started the audio mixing process, I was actually terrified to see what all our clips looked like lined up with each other. As we mixed through our entire session on tuesday night, I grew more and more excited to see the final project. The bottom line is this: Our project is not perfect. The plot line didn't go as planned, our locations didn't go as planned, editing didn't go as planned, but the final product resembles countless hours of hard work from each group member. This is by far the hardest I have worked on a single project in my life. With that being said, I am so happy to present The Face Off at the screening on saturday in front of friends and peers. Over a month of work put into one project is finally over. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the Face Off.

I've never seen Anchorman...

At the beginning of the semester Mr. Scott Walle found out I'd never seen the movie Anchorman before. That's not to say I'd never heard of Anchorman before. Without even having seen it I could name a few particularly famous quotes from the movie, but that wasn't good enough. So, this past week Scott lent me the DVD.

I haven't gotten a chance to actually watch it yet (I'm sorrrry!) because of one certain Mass Media Research Methods exam, but now that that is over and done with I have some free time before break and I'll just have to watch it.

So yea, I'll have to let you know what I think, but I'm sure Will Ferrel is hilarious and that it will be just as great as everyone says.

See you all after break, and have a happy Thanksgiving!

Cinema Verite Project Reflection

Yes I know that the project has come and gone but I figured, better late than never. Now before I start this, I would like to say that I did understand the point of the project. That in the real film world, if there had to be a re-shoot then it would be very important to try to mimic the same motions again as closely as possible and that just in general, if somebody can direct a person's subtle movements than they probably know what they are doing directing wise. However, if I'm going to be completely honest, I was not a fan of this project.

The main thing that I had a problem with was that there wasn't any fiction involved, there was no creativity. Yes I suppose that recreating something could be considered creative but I felt like just spying on a group of people and then recreating their motions wasn't creative to me. It didn't satisfy my creative itch. I think it would have been fun if we had a choice of a movie scene and we would do our best to recreate that. Because then we would have the choice of our scene and we would be able to put our own creative twist on it while still recreating it. I think that that would have been a directorial exercise that would have been both fun and informative.

Another thing that I wasn't a huge fan of was the actual video. I'll explain what I mean by that. In the beginning of the semester you said that you wanted us to make videos that we would want to put in our reel, videos that we were proud to show off and brag about. Now I only speak for myself when I say this, and not for anybody else in my group, but in all honestly I'm not that proud of the video. It's not something that I would ever show somebody mainly because I don't think it's very interesting or entertaining in any way. It doesn't tell a story and if I was to just show it to somebody, I honestly feel as though they wouldn't care at all about it. The one shot project on the other hand I am very proud of and I have showed it to my friends and family and I think that it came out very well. I liked the story I told and I'm very happy with how it turned out. This cinema verite project however, I can't say that I feel the same way.

Like I said at the beginning of the post, I do understand the point of the project and I do understand where this exercise came from and in all honesty I think it's a good idea to do. However, I really wasn't a fan of making this a full blown project. We spent over a month on this and I personally think that this is something that we should have done over the weekend as a quick exercise and then just left it at that. Making this a full project was something that I didn't really like. I really didn't feel like I put any effort into this and that's probably because I didn't. Personally I just wanted to get it out of the way so I could move on to whatever was next. If I was going to spend over a month on something, I would have liked it to be for something that I would end up feeling proud about, and as I have already mentioned, I really wasn't proud of this project.

Which takes me to our next project. This is the one that I'm looking forward to the most and probably for a fairly obvious reason, I have a lot of creative freedom for this one. Yes it needs to be based off of a news story but I mean, the news is more than interesting enough for a fictional story to come out of it. This is the kind of project that I would like people to see. After watching this final project, then people could form an opinion of my directing and storytelling abilities.