The other Zap photos

So we played the zap game, as it were, in class yesterday. The idea was you showed the photo and then everyone shouted out the first thing it make them feel/think. I did show my small dog one first but also showed these three as well because I was expecting the small dog one to kind of fail. Ultimately it wasn't the best of the images, but it also worked because for the teacher it was the first thing she said.

So if you want to play the game shout out what you think for these three.

I'm glad I'm not an actor

The auditions last night were great. We had bad weather, which probably hurt us. Only about half the people who said they were coming actually showed up. Lai is having a problem because he didn't get anyone reading for him. Aaron got one perfect person for each part. Ehsan's script is still a little up in the air, but I think he's got some interesting people to pick from. I think Jorge is ultimately going to go with friends, but it was still a good exercise for him. He had a couple people come out and read for him but they were both about 10 years older than he was hoping for. And me? Well I'm having an embarrassment of riches.

The First Zap

I was out doing homework for Thesis Prep while walking the dog. Here's the assignment.

Challenge A The First Zap. With this challenge we determine what the audience sees with a given shot, versus what the filmmaker HOPES the audience sees, upon initial viewing. To this end, take 3 photographs of three different images that compel us, the viewer, to register the image PLUS its qualifier at the same time. In other words, you want us to see: Big Tree, not just Tree. Official Building, not just building. Neurotic Mother, not just Mother. Red car, not just Car. You get the idea. More explanation in class.

I am not a fast reader

This is not actually news, but I feel like I'm noticing it more. I like the book I'm reading for class this weekend (Producing and Directing the Short Film) much better than pretty much any of the books we read last term. I feel like last term most of the reading I did was for Film Studies and frankly half way through the term I stopped reading those books. Not because they weren't interesting, they were a bit. But they were dry and it was taking forever to get through them, and they were covering the same stuff that his lectures did and his lectures were very engaging. I liked the books for screenwriting, come to think of it. And I only skimmed the production book because it was all stuff I knew.

Auditions

We put out a casting notice for all 5 of our short scenes. Well I was putting one together for mine and told the guys I'm booking a room and putting out a notice anyway so if you want in send me your summary and character breakdown. They all did because they're not stupid, I was doing a bunch of work for them. And I don't really mind since it was no more work than just doing it for myself.

But now I've realized that yes it is. Because I put my email as the contact and since we don't have the room reservation confirmed yet - I put in the request but I'm still waiting to hear - told them to let me know if they were  planning to come so I could tell them where once I know. And I still wasn't thinking that was going to be much. Well, the notice went out yesterday afternoon and so far we've got 22 people coming for a total of 10 roles.

I'm a little worried about our 3 hour block of time being good enough. We will need to be very organized on the day. And none of us have ever really done auditions before so we're all just faking it. I really hope that's going to be a topic of conversation in at least one of our classes this term.

Director vs Director of Photography

So this question got posed in my earlier post about the lack of women cinematographers:

hate to sound naive but... whats the difference between cinematographer and director? 

And answering it will also give me the chance to talk about my 4th class which I haven't mentioned yet which is Advanced Directing. I find it kind of entertaining that they call it Advanced Directing since none of us have had beginning directing. Unless they count all the stumbling around self taught directing that we've all done on our films so far.

Monet or Degas?

For Cinematography we have an assignment to go to the Museum of Fine Arts, select a painting with a landscape orientation (so similar to how our cameras shoot) and then do a 1 page write up about what you see that's interesting and why you picked it - a clinical look and a personal look.

I found it entertaining to wander around the MFA this morning for homework. I had a really hard time picking though. I managed to only take pictures of 7 paintings (we have to have a copy of the painting along with the write up). And now I've narrowed it down to 2.

where are the women?

For Cinematography we are going to have to do a report on a cinematographer of our choice. As I'm not the kind of person to memorize crew names of films, I don't really know any apart from Haskell Wexler from last term's film studies presentation. So I've arbitrarily decided I want to pick an American woman working in fiction film. WHY ARE THEY SO HARD TO FIND?

Prompt me please

I'm not a writer, not really. And I knew that. Part of picking BU was that they had screenwriting MFA students that I could befriend. That hasn't quite gone as planned yet. I only saw them in my film studies class last term and that wasn't the kind of class where you get to know people, it was all just lectures. And now they aren't in any of my classes so I'm not sure how to find them.

And we're back

First day of classes. I woke up to snow. I love snow in theory. I don't so much like it when I'm biking to campus. Fortunately the roads were clear enough (Mom), but the freezing rain stinging my eyes was unpleasant. But I am happy to report that my waterproof pants and my waterproof boots held up well so I think I'm actually ready for the winter. And I'd still rather have a cold winter than a hot summer.

But anyway, classes. It was good to see the fellas this morning. Everyone seemed refreshed, happy, and ready to go. I know I am. I think we all took a look at what's on the line up for the next few months and thought this is going to be fun, let's have at it.

Creativity Will Begin Promptly at Three

Someday I'm going to use that post title as a film title. It was something that we used to joke about when I worked at the Kennedy Center, the idea that in schools art class happened at a certain time and that was the only time students are allowed/encouraged to be creative.