Actual film. Moving film even, which I haven't done before. Though it's not so much different from the still film shooting that I used to do. So in fact we were shooting in pairs and I let Jason do most of the shooting because he needed the experience more than I did. But it was so much fun getting my hands on a film camera.
Here's what it reminds me of: I remember reading about the Japanese artists that do the calligraphy work. The materials for that are very unforgiving. You can't hesitate and you can't go back and fix. Once you put the brush to the paper you can't hesitate and you can't change your mind. The way the paper and the ink react you have to just do it. So those artists would do a lot of meditation to get themselves in the right mental and emotional place and then make their art.
Film, particularly the way we're shooting it, is a lot like that. You could in theory shoot all the takes and tests you need in whatever order and then edit it later provided you had enough time and money. That's how films have been made for over a century. We won't be doing that for our film projects though. We will get one 100-foot roll of film (which is just under 3 minutes) and will need to shoot in order one take for each scene. And even today when we were just doing a bunch of tests rather than a real story we did each test once. It makes us like those Zen artists. We need to really know what we're going to do and then commit and do it.
My brother asked, if you're never going to need to do this in real life then what's the point? The point is it forces us to have discipline. No, we aren't likely to shoot film after we get out of school. No we aren't going to shoot with this sort of in camera editing even if we do shoot film. But as an assignment it's kind of fantastic. You have to understand your lenses and their effect on the image. You have to understand exposure and how to use a light meter. You have to be able to visualize the story you're telling and really know what you're after. Film will be very unforgiving of any mistakes with all of that. If you can get it right in film where that's difficult then when you get to the more forgiving digital cameras you won't be wasting people's time because of all the bad habits you have.
I'm so jealous! Not that I want to be a film maker. Just that you are having so much fun. I love living vicariously through you!
ReplyDeleteAnd required organizational and planning skills that will be needed for Directing. You'll use the organization and planning skills differently (e.g. won't need to shoot in chronological appearance later) but will need them. You have that in spades, so not learning so much for you. But great to see that is built into the program.
ReplyDeleteToday before acting class I was working on sketching storyboards when a bunch of the guys arrived and asked what I was doing so I showed them. One of the guys said, oh that's so cute. And I thought, no, necessary no matter how badly I draw. We get 100 feet of film and no second takes and no editing. I don't know how he thinks he's going to get his film done if he doesn't pre-visualize it. But then this is the same guy who had to re-do his treatment and when he turned in the revision today asked what happens if he doesn't pass this time either. So maybe he thinks he isn't going to get his film done either.
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