the difference between a film and a job

I think I'm still looking at assignments the way I look at jobs. I got my grade and feedback for the second film project (Printing a Shirt). The grade was good enough, but not great. I wouldn't care at all except 1) I'm inherently competitive with myself and I got straight As in Ithaca and 2) I need a minimum GPA for my scholarship. (Not in jeopardy, I'm fine.)

watched this in class today

An Oscar nominated short from 2006. It was very good.

Circle of Confusion

Thanksgiving has come and gone and now the mad sprint to the end of the semester commences. Tomorrow we have our first final. None of my professors put their finals in finals week to save us from having to do everything at once. Guess what.

So here's what I have left to do in the order it is due:

Killer - lessons learned

I am a firm believer that on every shoot if you haven't learned something you aren't paying attention. So this morning waiting for class to start I wrote up some notes from last night. Over all I think it went well. I had fun. The new actors were good to work with, and I think it's good for me to learn to work with strangers. It's a bit easy to just keep working with Esther and Eric all the time. I skimmed the footage and it's all there and looks good, but I am slightly nervous about what I'm going to find myself wishing for when I get to editing it.

Seen on my morning walk

Maybe I'm easily amused, but this really entertained me.

Printing a Shirt

It was raining and nasty today and all I really wanted was to stay in bed with the dog, a cup of tea, and the screenplay I've been working on. Sadly that was not an option. On the other hand, I was wildly productive today.

why I make a bad film student

I suck at actually remembering films I've seen. We're critiquing people's scripts in screenwriting and we're supposed to include references to films we've talked about in class, or in other classes, or just seen ourselves. It's not just for the sake of proving we can name films but to help the writers learn from how other people approached similar situations or challenges.

The problem is I can't write "This reminds me of that film. You know, the one with that guy. It was kind of spooky. And that thing kept happening and you weren't quite sure what it was. You know, that film." I can almost see it in my head but I have no idea what film it was or who "the guy" was. All I can think of is Sixth Sense, but that's not it. I hope someone else comes up with the same one in the discussion later today or it's going to drive me crazy for days.

Things are coming together

My talk on Wexler went well this morning. I knew enough about him. I had a good outline to keep myself on track. I had fun clips. And I talked. I'm good at talking, at teaching people the things that I know. And I think the class found it more interested than probably most of you did. I actually had someone leaning forward in his seat. Yay me. Onward. I need to write a 10-12 page paper on the same topic (well doesn't have to be the same, but I've done all the research) by the end of the month. Should be just a matter of writing up the talk in a more scholarly way than I did here, though I'll stop by the professor's office hours next week to see if he wants me to spin it one way or another.

So that's all fine, but here's the fun part of the day:

What I know about Haskell Wexler

This is roughly what I'm going to tell people on Thursday in class. I won't read it out of course, I just wanted to sort it out in my head. Make sure I know all the things I want to know while I still have time to remedy any missing info. For example I have a copy of the MLA Handbook and of Kate Turbaian's Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, but as I got them both while I was in Ithaca in 1995 neither will tell me how to properly cite videos found on YouTube. For you for general purposes: I watched several of his films, I watched the documentary about him that his son did, I read articles in American Cinematographer and Film Quarterly, and our textbook covered a little bit about him. So if you're interested in Wexler read more.

I guess I guessed well

We got our mid-terms back for Masterworks. I only missed two of the clip identifications when I thought I missed at least half. And I only missed 1 of the multiple choice. So that's cool. I have to be honest though, it doesn't make me in a hurry to read the texts now that I've proved I can get by without. First things first though, presentation next week. That and editing my 2 minute documentary are my big ticket items for the weekend.

I also need to start pre-producing my final project for Production 1. I was looking at the calendar today to figure out when I want to shoot it and I realized that the first rough cut is due 11/28. Which means I need to shoot it the week before Thanksgiving because honestly that week will be a wash. But that means like 2 weeks from tonight I need to be shooting and first I need to find 5 actors.

The good news on that front though is that I'm planning to use my short script from screenwriting for it and we work-shopped that today. It was an interesting discussion. Generally well received, generally understood. A few good suggestions about how to keep the actual murder from getting gratuitously violent. And what I need to do now is re-write the script to turn it in later, but what I want to do is go straight to storyboarding it. I really really wish I could draw.

And I need to have the first draft of Ghost Tours in a couple of weeks as well. I haven't even started that one, but I know if I can get in the zone and get a hunk of undistracted time I'll be able to churn it out. It's a first draft after all.

If you haven't read it, here's the link to Killer.