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.


I can report good things about Production 2. We didn't just talk about sound theory, we talked about the theory and then tried it out with a little class practice. We are hitting the ground running with that class. Our first assignment is due on Friday, though Aaron has turned his in already and I just emailed mine during the lunch break because it was done. Sam (the professor) had given us warning so we wouldn't be blind sided by it. And then we have another exercise due next Wednesday that is a group practice with the sound gear. No camera or anything, just practice recording a conversation. I'm not even sure it's going to get graded, though I suppose the syllabus tells me. But the point is to get comfortable with the gear so that when we're using it for a real shoot we aren't fighting with the recorder or pointing the mic in the wrong direction.

The second class of the day is Thesis Preparation. What is that? You may ask. And you should ask because I had no idea. Now that we've had it I have a vague idea. Really it's a seminar class in the fine graduate sense of a small group of people sitting around a table talking about the thing they do. We will watch a lot of shorts, we will pick them apart and dissect them and talk about what works and what doesn't. We will work on our own new scripts for our thesis films. Potentially for our films anyway, we don't have to use them ultimately. We will learn about all the stuff we need to have for our thesis film proposals, which will be more than just the scripts. We will do exercises to stretch ourselves outside of our comfort zones in order to help us find our voices as filmmakers. It's only the 4 of us and we're going to become a tight team over the course of the semester just from everything else we're doing anyway, but I think this class will be a little bit like acting was last term. It's just us and we're trying things that make us uncomfortable, but it's ok because it's us and we're all cool. Mary Jane very much has an art background and wants to run the class like a film school conservatory. It's a good point really. All the kids over at Berkley who are going to become professional musicians have been making music since they were quite young. So why should our art be able to be taught in 2 years with just film school?

The last class of the day is Cinematography. I am going to love this class. The teacher, John, is an older guy who's been working freelance in the business mostly around Boston for decades. He has boatloads of experience to learn from, and he's a nice combination of no-nonsense and friendly. It's a big class. There's 3 grad students (Aaron couldn't take an elective this semester because of his TA job, so just Jorge and Lai and me) and about 15 undergrads in the junior and senior range. I took a weekend workshop from a DP who works out of NYC once 7 or 8 years ago and I had a ton of fun. This is going to be a whole semester of that. Cameras and lights and dollies and tripods and c-stands and flags and electric and all the things that fall under the purview of the Director of Photography. In fact we started out with a chart of all the basic crew on a set and what they do and who they report to and who talks to whom and about what.

I'm going to have to figure out a good routine for surviving Wednesdays though. It's a long day and I think the trick is going to be having enough of the right kinds of food so that I can maintain steady blood sugar all day and not be spiking and crashing on carbs and/or sugar. And plenty of water. I did kind of ok today except for the water and I came home with a headache. Fortunately Cinematography is going to be so much fun that I think even though it's at the end of a long day I'll still have energy for it.