I am touched and grateful to all my fellow schoolmates at BDFI. All share so much of themselves, their personal stories and dreams, as well as their practical knowledge and talents. Even on those days when I feel tired and vulnerable, I leave school inspired and informed regarding how to improve my project. Classes definitely help to shape the way I see the world and the choices I make to format my ideas.

Patrick, Allen, Fred, Sharif and Melissa have a wealth of information to share. While theory and ideas are important, experience is the greatest teacher. I appreciate we are given so many opportunities to put into practice all that we have learned.

I continue to be amazed by what we can create with ideas, stories, actors, filming, lighting and editing. What a complex and profound form of art. Thank you all for opening the doors to this amazing world.

Wow. So much has happened. Location scouting, sending out casting calls, running auditions, scheduling rehearsals and shoot dates and now down to editing. We’ve been thrown into the deep end of the pool in film making and we’re actually coming out of it. Personally I felt overwhelmed when we were getting started. I mean, even though I’ve had a chance to take part in other productions I’d never actually ran auditions myself or scheduled dates for shooting or rehearsals or any of it, but I jumped in head first and made myself do it and now I’ve actually seen the process come to life. It’s yielded not only experience, but even more confidence for me. I know I can do this now. I was born to direct and now that I’ve been tossed from the protective nest and forced to fly, I know I can. Coming here to BDFI was the right thing to do.

“Sundance is our arena. Bring it on!” - Patrick Kriwanek

Three weeks ago I was constantly writing down dialogue; I was listening to everyone’s conversations and jotting down anything of interest.
My kids got sick of it: “Not dialogue again mom!” Or they said, “hey mom, won’t you write that down? That was good”. They even helped me write.

The next week it was all about objective: what is it that you really want? What is it that you are looking for by saying that?

The truth is that this was so challenging for me because I did not understand the focus of this week: subtext. So many layers of subtext. Now all I do is watch myself talk. How many layers of meaning lie beneath each of my words? Do I even know? So rare to only communicate one layer of meaning. The world would be a most flat and boring place. Playing with subtext in dialogue has been quite entertaining. I realize I do it all the time. How many mysterious layers of subtext did I hear in our improv class today? Did I capture the subtext in my footage? Did I give my actors clear objectives?

Sharif, Fred, Melissa and Patrick all helped to illuminate what lies beneath our dialogues and scenes; Alan illuminated the world of lighting and the subtext we chose to create with it.

Now if only the sun will shine we’ll be set for the week-end.

As a counselor I helped couples express to each other what it is that they are feeling; yesterday as a director, I helped a couple that I put together, feel what I was expressing. I really enjoyed the experience; the depth, vulnerability and range of emotion of the actors I chose was remarkable. To perform as they do, they must constantly be growing and learning from all that life throws their way. The experience was a gift, and the actors are a blessing.

This is a time of great activity at BDFI, and we are all feeling it. I do work best under pressure, although at times I get frazzled. The small inconveniences that may arise are to be expected. I remain grateful for this opportunity, and most excited to actually be filming my scene tomorrow! Hope you all have a great week-end!

I’ve been away from the Berkeley Digital BLOG for too long. I’ll try to post weekly if not daily from now on.

SEMESTER 2
Second semester instruction has been excellent especially from Sharif Nakhleh (Final Cut Pro/Editorial), Alan Hereford (Camera Operations) and Dan Olmsted (Sound Design). Patrick Kriwanek has continued with Producing/Directing 2 and Fred Ritzenberg has continued with Screenwriting 2. Instead of feeling more intense, my classmates seem to be cruising along. We’ve gotten way over the stress of pre-production and our scripts have increased in complexity. I feel that we still have to master the basics and instructors Sharif and Alan are providing the detailed technical information that we may have missed Semester 1 due to stress of the steep S-1 learning curve.

CINEMATOGRAPHY/CAMERA OPERATIONS
Alan is giving key lessons on selecting camera distance and focal length. We also discussed lighting, camera team roles and responsibilities, pulling focus and much more. All adding to our Semester 1 instruction from Mark Herzig. Mark’s written documents on Cinematography theory and practice have taken on more weight and importance for me this semester. in retrospect, I feel privaleged to have been taught the purist approach from someone as seasoned as Herzig before learning specific camera operations currently.

FINAL CUT PRO/EDITORIAL
Sharif’s level of detail on FCP and digital editing in general is incredible and incredibly inspiring. Sharif demystefies the editing process to say the least. He teaches best practice and at the same time allows for our individual style and manner of learning. Last Thursday he discussed metaphysics, psychology, philosophy as applied to film/video editorial. He’s fascinated with editing and this inspires me deeply. Because of this and what Patrick Kriwanek taught Semester 1 from a writing/producing standpoint, I now consider not just “shooting for the edit” but “writing for the edit as well.”

PROTOOLS/SOUND DESIGN
Dan Olmsted is another master teacher. He loves Sound Design and like Sharif makes it accessible. In a few weeks he has taught us to deeply consider Sound Design as a part of the pre-production/pre-visualization process. Write for sound design, leave room for sound design, allow sound design to make our locations into characters. His first ProTools assignment for us was to create an audio story (like an old fashioned radio drama). This assignment alone (after his first class ProTools demo) demystified the robust application. Other assignemnt was to watch Fritz Lang’s “M” (early film famous for being concepted for sound design) and to read an article by Skywalker Ranch Sound Designer Randy Thom. Dan also graciously took us into the famous Saul Zaentz Film Center/Fantasy Foley Room and let us play around on the Stage 2 Mixing Board. Dan is instilling in us an appreciation for film history and our legacy as Northern California filmmakers. He also emailed us the specs for OMF-ing the sound file from FCP into ProTools. I wish that I could sit back and enjoy all this as a film enthusiest, but I’ve got to catch up and edit my ass off as well as kick ass on my Project 3. More to come …

Of all the challenges I have faced so far at BDFI, using Microsoft Word to format a script on my PC has been the most time consuming. It reminds me of when I was learning to knit, and I wasted hours doing one row, only to find I had dropped a stitch at the very beginning. Apple laptop here I come. I definitely need my moment at the genius bar.

The beauty of this whole process of filmmaking is watching our dreams and labors of love actualize into a reality. What a gift to challenge ourselves completely and work together to create this multi dimensional form of art and self-expression. I am loving it!

The footage we shot on September 25th in Cinematography class I have put online for people to download and edit together. It will also be loaded onto all the edit rooms under the folder “9/25 Lens Test & Matching Footage” on the DATA drive.

Here is the link where you can find it:
BDFI Lens Test & Matching Footage

and the login info.
User: BDFI (in caps)
Password: mastervideo