Today we spent class reviewing an outstanding variety of scenes that Sharif, our editing teacher, collected to demonstrate subtext. In the first and most blatant example, from Annie Hall, the characters’ meaningless chit chat about art and photography is contrasted with their real thoughts - Woody’s sexual interest in Annie and Annie’s self-consciousness - which is provided in subtitles to a very funny effect.

In other scenes, the subtext was exposed in the characters faces or in the surrounding elements in the scene or even in odd blocking of the characters in the scene. Some of these scenes demonstrated the amazing ability of superb actors (well directed) to deliver subtext in unbelievably subtle facial expressions, often while barely muttering a word. Subtext comes through the character’s actions and can often make the dialog between the characters virtually irrelevant.

The lesson to be learned is that good performances can often be obtained by directing actors to understand the motives of their characters and the subtext being conveyed in a scene. All this is really timely for the scripting of my second film, which is currently making its way from my head to paper, and will rely heavily on subtext. Great stuff, Sharif!

Good stuff from Patrick this past Monday on directing and how important it is to be the leader, troubleshooter and decision maker. It’s a subtle art that requires juggling many things at once and being flexible yet decisive so that everyone on the set knows what’s happening and what’s expected. We reviewed some of the recent issues that we were encountering with our upcoming shoots and discussed how some tough situations were handled. Good learning experience for all.

I also started reviewing my footage from my shoot last week. The exposure and sound were good, as was the acting, but the position of the actors in the frame was not ideal and I learned a few good lessons about what to look for when setting up the frame. (Good to make these mistakes now and learn from them.) Although we spent some time on this in earlier classes with typical booth scenes, where the actors face each other, my set was a little different with the actors side by side. One of the interesting things about shooting a side-by-side dialog is that all the shots have both actors faces in the frame, which requires less editing and potentially fewer cuts. This also enables the viewer to focus on either actor, giving the effect of a more natural dialog.

I want to express to you the unique and real experience that I had while sitting in on a class at the Berkeley Digital Film Institute this last monday 06/23/08. I’ve been a avid film fan for the last 20 years and want to take my home films to the next level with a goal of becoming a Producer/Director of quality films.

What I found was a caring and realistic approach to what is only offered at a post-graduate level for Directors and Producers that is distilled into a 16 month program. This particular class size consisted of 9 creative thinking people ranging in ages from their 20’s to 50’s. This was a remarkable group that not only cared about their own projects but took a concerned and thoughtful interest in those of their classmates projects as well. This was a complete and utter surprise to see such a level of knowledge taught in such a nurturing way. No egos were involved; just the love of the project.

This is a school that not only provides upper level knowledge but promotes this in a very attentive and loving environment; with such a small sized class the students are thrown into the realm of understanding the very importance of cooperation needed to complete their projects.

As a result of this experience; I have decided to become a part of this program.
Michael Hurley

Creating a film is really quite an amazing process. First you get this idea in your head for a movie, then you mess around for a while writing and rewriting scripts, casting, location hunting, pulling together a crew and developing a plan. At some point it all comes together and you get out and shoot. We’re also learning HOW to do all of this on the fly, which means, of course, that we barely know what we’re doing as we’re doing it. Somehow it all works out and, like riding a bike, you find your balance and suddenly there you are cruising along, camera, crew and actors in motion, shooting the actual film. What a trip!

I had only heard of BDFI about 8 weeks ago, and here I am directing my first film… actors are speaking my script, camera people are filming and there I am, in the middle, trying to say ‘action!’ with some conviction, so that it seems like I know what I’m doing. Good thing I worked on a couple of other film sets in the past week or so, standing for hours holding up a flag to control the lighting. As dull as that sounds, it did give me the opportunity to watch the process up close and get at least a few hours of experience by osmosis before getting behind the wheel. Amazingly, this worked quite well and I actually felt like the team and I, as green as we were, had significant confidence that we could pull this off and get good results. Nothing beats learning by doing.

Our set was out on a horse farm behind the Berkeley Hills, on a quiet idyllic dirt road under a massive live oak. My characters were two bike racers out on a training ride who stopped to take a break under the tree and have a little chat. We had a small crew of 7 and minimal equipment, since we were filming under full battery power and sunlight. Starting early, at around 6:30am, to catch some good morning light and stay out of the heat (which eventually got into the mid 90s) we had a quick breakfast and got set up and started shooting almost right on schedule at about 8:30. At about this time, our beautiful, tranquil set started going berserk with sound… the birds and bees got louder, the horses snorted and stampeded around, jets flew over every few minutes and it seemed as though a local helicopter training school started class right above the Berkeley Hills, circling endlessly. Ambient noise continued to torture us throughout the day, but we made it through and wrapped on schedule, exhausted, but also exhilarated, and looking forward with hope that our efforts result in something worth viewing.

Quote of the day (overheard from Anthony as he was holding the boom mic): ‘Right now, I’m a frickin’ airport for flies.’

Photos of the shoot can be see here

This week I will be shooting my first project! I am very excited and I hope I can get it all done in time. Last week I finished casting and my actors are great! I really lucked out and got two amazing actors that are exactly what I was looking for. This next week is going to be a lot of rushing around and getting everything ready for rehearsals, location, costumes and all the other little details. We are also going to be pitching our ideas for our next project this week, so we are jumping right into the next one before we are finished shooting. It’s good that they keep us busy, I know it will make me better at multi- tasking and organizing my time.

Last week was amazing we had two guest speakers. First we had Debbie Brubaker, who was awesome. She is one of the most prolific women producers in the bay area and she had a lot of great advice and wonderful stories to share. It made me realize how much producers have to be responsible for, it’s so much work! It really gave me a lot of respect for her and the work she does to learn how much she has to know and go through to see a project through until completion. Then we also had Randy Quaid and his wife come to our school with their movie project they have been working on with a few of our Senior students. It was a very experimental film and was unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was interesting to see people’s different styles of filmmaking and learn about their process.

I’ve just finished casting, putting together a film crew, and finding
a location for my first short film. I am just so excited! Without
BDFI, I would be sitting in some film theory class, discussing what
film making is all about rather than having hands-on instruction from
day one. Just last week, 2 major events were happening at BDFI: 1)
private viewing of Randy Quaid and his wife’s project (Randy is so
tall !), 2) an open discussion with a local bay area producer,
Debbie Brewbaker who’s working on Banjanmin Bratt’s project. It’s so
awesome!!! You are not an outsider, but an insider of the film
industry.
Yesterday, I had my first rehearsal. It was incredible, working with
the actors to make the characters and scene come alive, especially
with the costume on. I can almost taste the successful end. I was so
exhilarated I couldn’t go to sleep. Today, my classmates and I got
together and conducted an impromptu pre-production planning meeting
with the crew. It just makes me realize how all this is real to
becoming a Producer/ Director. I can’t describe how wonderful it is to
do what you are born to do. I am fortunate to have such a nurturing
place to grow my dreams.

This week we were hit by the first big wave of auditions and the reality that our scripts might actually turn into films. Everyone jumped in and helped and it was fun to do all the different roles, from greeting the actors to reading scripts to directing and doing the camera work. It’s fascinating to see real people breathe life into the words that we wrote and how different the characters can be depicted by different actors. You also start to see where the script is working or not. I got lots of ideas and feedback from my auditions and it seems like I’m practically rewriting the whole script now.

The other really cool thing about this week was a couple of special guests that Patrick brought in. We got to meet Debbie Brubaker, one of the top producers in northern California, and hear what it’s like to be a serious film producer. It’s pretty mind boggling, actually, when you hear her talk about the million dollar budgets (for SMALL films!) all the crews, equipment, actors and especially the unions and how she worked her way from the smallest film jobs up to the top of the heap. On one hand, producing sounds very removed from the creative side of film making, with all the effort that goes into developing the budget and managing the people. On the other hand, she clearly shares in the thrill that a producer has of being involved in every aspect of making an idea into a movie. The producer role is one of the harder movie making roles to understand, but after meeting with Debbie and hearing her stories, it’s much clearer why this is the role with the most responsibility and the biggest rewards, and why it’s not for everyone. Great stuff.

The second special guest of the week was actor Randy Quaid (brother of Dennis) and his wife Evi, who directs and produces. Randy is a veteran actor of hundreds of films including an Oscar nominated performance in The Last Detail (1973). I also discovered that he was in Midnight Express, Missouri Breaks and Paper Moon, a few movies from the 70’s that I really enjoyed. We were treated to a special screening of some early cuts of an avant-garde art film project that Evi is working on with Randy… very interesting and great for pushing our notions of the creative limits film in new directions.

This week at B.D.F.I. was very exciting for me. To begin, we started the
week learning about sound and how to operate a boom microphone. Opposed
to the strictly visual nature of the program thus far, this was a welcome
change of pace in addition to being immensely informative. Patrick cut
his teeth in the business as a sound tech, so having all that experience
relayed onto us was very cool. Antoher big event of that week the stands
out in my mind is the guest lecture with Debie Brubaker. Having one of
the most respected producer’s in the bay area come in is a testament to
the pull B.D.F.I. has in the bay, as well as the amazingly close-knit
relationship shared by entertainment professionals here. Debie was very
cool and laid back. It was refreshing to see someone in her position that
is so cordial and polite. Just goes to show that good things do happen to
good people. Antoher amazingly cool person in the industries elite that
we had the pleasure of meeting this week was Randy Quaid. He and his wife
came by to show part of an independent feature that they’de been working
on during their recent vacation to Texas. It was edgy, dark, and twisted,
so naturally I liked it right away. Randy’s acting was fantastic.
Going further, it was a chance for many of us to see him in a
totally different light and attaining a whole new range than he had ever
previously attempted. It was exhilarating to see an actor of his
reputation still willing to take chances and explore that recluse,
shakespeare spouting, fur wearing degenerate artist in himself. I’d have
to say it was a pretty amazing week here at B.D.F.I. and it makes me
wonder what’s in store for us next week.

Well, I haven’t been very diligent about blogging this semester but I have a good excuse: I’m in the final week of post-production on my hour-length documentary! It has absolutely taken over my life and the life of my selfless collaborator, Emmanuel. We’ve been editing, re-editing, sound designing, and test screening, everything but getting lots of sleep and taking weekends off.
Dan Olmstead, our second semester sound teacher, has been such a great resource for sound design. I am so blessed that he has offered to mix the doc in Stage 2, our classroom/classy mixing stage. So this coming Friday the 13th, armed with snacks and coffee, Dan and my class are going to do a full-out mix into the wee hours if necessary. Really, that is going to be an extraordinary experience and is a wonderful gift from Dan and BDFI.
Sound design and finishing my doc have enabled me to coerce several of my classmates into taking on roles in my project. Joel, Nick, and Marlenée have been helping with sound, and Franco has been doing the graphic animations for the piece. It has made me feel much more supported and challenged to have a bigger team on board.
Another surprisingly rewarding process was the test-screening experience. For a few weeks, Emmanuel and I sat with many of our peers and watched the documentary, noticing every flicker of their eyes away from the screen, the things they laughed at, what they thought didn’t make sense, what was interesting. Then we’d scramble to make the changes that we had seen necessary as a result of borrowing a fresh pair of eyes and try it out again on another unsuspecting pair. I was surprised to find that I did not struggle with accepting criticism, it was always contextualized nicely by those who gave it, and deep down I was always critical of the same things. Having my own criticisms articulated by someone else enabled me to summon the energy and creative brainpower to recut, change again and again, and most importantly, rethink almost every single clip in the documentary in at least some minute way. I was impressed by the level of the criticism as well.
In the coming week, I will complete this doc that has been haunting me/gracing me with its presence (depending on the day) for most of a year now, I’ll send it off to several Canadian film festivals, and I’ll be able to start something new. Well, maybe not right away. Maybe I’ll just take a few days to go to the beach.

Thank you for having me out to audition yesterday. I had a really good time and was impressed by the professionalism and hospitality that you and your colleagues showed. It was good to get to talk to you for a bit too before reading. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you in making your casting decision.

All the best - keep the rubber side down,
Harold

For the first few weeks of this second semester, I’ve concentrated on documentary filmmaking in and out of the program. After my first two narrative shorts from first semester, which brought me a lot regarding prod and post-prod, I’m going back to my area of interest –doc-making– and applying everything I learned towards editing a feature-length doc Jodie shot last summer. Our new class, sound design, taught by Daniel Osborn, has really brought a whole other dimension to our editing process, which has basically taken over our lives.

The sound class has done something great for the project: bring it into the curriculum to be used as an example to learn protools and sound design in general. Dan has offered to mix the final project in the 5.1 theater room, which is bringing the whole project to another level audio-wise. It’s also giving all of us an opportunity to see how the sound stems we have created work in a surround environment. Bottom line: D-10 and we still have to fill the audio tracks with ambient, SFXs, sweetening, replace some titles, finish motion graphics, color correct, mix, compress, send out….once again, it seems it’s time to take a big breath of air before going under for the next 2 weeks.