And So We Begin
Met this morning the new class of students with whom I’ll be learning the craft of filmmaking over the course of the next sixteen or so months.
There are ten of us total, coming from all across the States (and Canada), and though the age range is somewhat shallow it seems fairly clear already that our backgrounds and experiences present a welcome store of diversity.
Moreover, throughout the class today and afterward, during an impromptu & informal lunch at a deli across the street, everyone conveyed such enthusiasm and collegiality - for the process, the school, our collective & individual goals, etc. - that I couldn’t help but become excited about what lay ahead. Even as the uncertainty of what exactly that might be, and how we’re to go about realizing it, remains.
Most of our class time today was devoted to getting to know each other, and the program, better. More of a toe-dip than swan dive.
After an overview of the directing & producing class - our first short film due in seven weeks - we had a terrific, if necessarily brief, dissection of a few early scenes from David Fincher’s “Seven,” during which we covered, among other things, framing and shot composition and the preservation of momentum & direction. Just a taste of the care and thought that accomplished directors invest in the smallest of details, the quickest of cuts.
If some of it was intuitive, it still felt a touch overwhelming, considering that the idea & goal of this whole endeavor is to have our own projects approach that level - ideally as quickly as possible. But of course I’m getting ahead of myself. For now’s time to simply come up with a workable idea for our first project - a conversation between two people in a fixed setting - and prepare for tomorrow’s camera class.
More to follow, I’m sure…
