Been a while

So this has been one heck of a year. I finished production on my thesis. Kind of left me with more questions and room for exploration then answers. I now know more of how I work and how to tweak parts to enhance my work. So that is a plus. It was a very expensive process and all consuming. It was fantastic! Now that I have graduated with my B.F.A. I plan on trying to figure out how to get my production company off of the ground. Since there is no "real" track plan on becoming a Director. Why not just start from scratch and create my own identity fully. Can hardly wait to pick my families brains on how they got their private business models started. I already have a short project that I am rewriting into a feature in the hopes of securing funding for a feature. I applied to U.S.C. for their Film and Television production program. Did not get in for the fall. So, I reapplied for the spring. We shall see. I am definitely contemplating applying to CalArts as well as A.F.I. I already am planning on applying to C.U. as well. We shall see where things go from here. Graduate school would be wonderful to more thoroughly identify with the field, but in the same breadth of space, it is exciting in just thinking about self starting. There is so much that I wish to investigate through the lens that it shall be a wonderful experience in identifying where I stand. Here's to standing on your own two feet. Life is beautiful and I will work hard at what ever comes my way.

Save the Cat

So I read Save The Cat! and it was a great insight into how to truly read a film. So that helped immensely with approaching my subject. It was great. So now I am reading from image to screen a book on story boarding and the best techniques for developing these images for production shooting. Great stuff as well. Was working through some perspective research for setting up independent work and it made me happy to see the opertunity that has yet to be tapped. Here is a link to the story. Enjoy.

http://www.denvergov.org/doca/DenverOfficeofCulturalAffairs/Permitting/FilmandTV/GrowingDenversFilmIndustry/tabid/437070/Default.aspx

Tracking

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Working Blues Funding

So I put together an IndieGoGo page in order to try and secure funding for finishing this project (I.e. post work, Crafty, and to pay the few people that will require it on set). Please help spread the word to your friends!

How Not To Make a Short Film.

So I read this wonderful book in one sitting. Not a bad read at all. I got a lot of useful information out of it that I was not getting out of my other research. Thank you Kevin Campbell for suggesting it. So now after lots more research and meditation, my Thesis is getting revised again. This time in a more beneficial way. I think instead of taking baby steps, I am starting to take strides. The preproduction end of my Thesis is moving sluggishly, but that is good, because I am taking my time now to make sure that every single last detail is in line before I shoot again on my project. Thank you Cyan for your words about making sure everything is lined out. Now that I have had some time to actually sleep and take a step back and assess my project, I can see the faults in the way I had the short film structured. So now the story focuses on the tension that builds between two friends who are laid off from the same mechanic shop and are struggling to find work. That is the focus, and the end is more intense, and at the same time I fear the ending. I will have to shoot it a couple different ways to see which ending is going to read properly and not end up as a shortcoming of the script, will it trend to read as predictable? Maybe, but that is the test of the acting performance I can wrangle out of my actors. I also talked to some people in the area and now have a sound engineer on board for shooting and post, as well as an editor, working now on a script supervisor and A.D. for this beast. I think with the crew that is assembling, this piece has a lot of room to thrive. BTW, I got my 5D IN YESTERDAY! So I have to make some time tonight to read its manuals and do some test shots so I can understand its strengths and limitations for my shoot. well, back to my studies. Going to read Save The Cat(!) now. I will post on that later. Until next time.

Working Blues

So I have spent the last week working diligently on my thesis project. Saturday night we all went out to shoot a sequence. We got everything set up and started filming, and then the porta pack died. So, we got lucky and Cameron has a friend that let us borrow his generator. We went out Sunday night after filming part of Joe's thesis during the day, and hooked it up. Thank goodness for lots of extension chords. Ended up putting the generator on the next block so that the sound of it would be minuscule. I didn't wrap production myself until 530 am morning. It was amazing to do. I am learning how to communicate my ideas clearly, and I am starting to be able to coax more of the performance out of my actors that I want. So I am happy for that. Frank and I are going to have a meeting later this week to work on our communication and how we need to work together. I fear that his plate is too full and I wish to address some issues and to clarify a final expectation that I have of him as the cinematographer. So I spent the afternoon of Tuesday through the night editing a ruff cut of the scene. The only problem I have with what we shot is that we ran out of room on our audio set up while we were out in the field shooting. So there is a take and a half of missing audio. I fear that that could have been prevented if when I ask my crew if they are ready and they say yes and I tell them to roll and then after I say action past when they are rolling, they let me know wait wait wait that in fact they are not ready. lots of time waisted in room on the audio file. So I have to fix that. There is also the fact that I didn't slate any of my shots, so THAT made the editing interesting. Going to have to have someone setup to do clapboard and log the takes chronologically to help with the editing process. These are things that are just stepping stones. I am finding the pace to be moving along smoothly otherwise, and I feel that I am growing as a Director. I really am able to communicate clearly and I just need to be a litle more firm in a few palces, but I am going to have to be cautious not to push to hard to get people to do what I am asking of them. Luckily, from this last shoot, I was able to fudge an aspect in post work, but there are some things I wish to point out to crew to help prevent some aspects of being...in clear words...fucked. but that's ok, we are all learning and will grow together.

V.A.

So I went to the V.A. today and spoke at length with my rep. about my thesis project and the possibility of me being able to shoot there and what channels I would need to go through for that as well as what they do offer for veterans. So I will be going in at 8am tomorrow to sit in on a class for vets on preparing them for the workforce and all the assistance that they lend us. Plus she gave me all the contact info for the people that I need to get a hold of for clearance. She read the script and likes it so much that she asked if she could send it on to D.C. for the higher ups to look over it. She says there may or may not be money in it, but it's worth a shot and is a large avenue of exposure. Plus I paint the aspect of post military as truthful and not biased in any way sort or form. Then I did some research on set functions and communication. Good stuff. So much that I need to digest. I am a little worried about getting my shooting schedule broken down. Everything that i have read up on suggests that you really need to hire someone to do it for the first time since there are so many aspects that can get hosed. But eh, gotta learn and move forward.