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.

CASTING WEEK FLASH-BACK
Ok…the first wave of productions is over…I can breathe a little…I even thought I would swim to the shore and paint you a little picture of what being at sea was like…but we’re already diving into the next project….pitch, story, structure, characters….I guess I’ll have to let you know what’s been happening while I’m still soaking in the water…let’s see….gloup…
Two weeks ago, we had a full week of casting auditions, and given the high number of responses most of us got from actors, it was essential to put together casting teams to greet, handle, film, and of course assess the actors that came in. It was really good to see the slowly forming bonds between all of us (first semester students) finally coming together in a real way as we helped make each other’s casting auditions run surprisingly smoothly for both the actors and ourselves…My auditions, pooled together with Jodie’s and Valérie’s, went by really well, with “only” ¼ of all actors failing to show up. I was left with the luxury of having a hard time choosing between three different actors for one of my roles, and 2 actors for the other…we then all had call-backs…more decisions… plus pre-production planning…and here we go…we were all propelled into production week for this first project.
OFF-SHORE REFLEXIONS
Following some advice I received from a second semester student during my first week at BDFI (“don’t spread yourself too thin”), I chose no more than 5 projects outside mine in which to get involved. And I’m happy I didn’t do more…it was plennnnty. Working on 6 shoots each averaging 8hr is probably nothing unusual time-wise for a production week in the industry, but when everything you do is a learning experience, and you’ve got not one single project unfolding, but 6 different ones to work on…it can get a little complicated. I’m thankful to the students who entrusted me with a piece of their project by having me on their set. A lot of the theory came into play and into place. Some of the details covered in class became major issues once on location, and that was good…since the lighting and sound problems we encountered helped me think about how to work with/around them for my own shoot, which came around on Sunday.
All in all, I feel that none of the shoots I was on had to endure any major catastrophes.
But I still have at least one “if only” for every shoot…so, let’s see:
MONDAY
On Nikko’s shoot on Monday, working as a gaffer in a relatively small space, I was satisfied with the comedic tone we were able to give Nikko’s piece by using appropriate light textures and balance. But the shadows our lights casted on the backwall made it hard for the boom operator to get close to the talents with the mic without casting a shadow on our background. Even though I kept an eye on the boom-pole shadow through the first half of the shoot, several takes ended up having a moving shadow in the right corner of the background…I hope none of these takes ends up being the “money shot” Nikko needs once in the edit room.
Lesson 1: if you know something is not right, say it BEFORE the take.
TUESDAY
On Jodie’s shot the next night, I worked as DP. The location –Serendipity Books- provided amazing instantaneous art direction for our set, but for some reason, I just could not get the lighting right. It took almost 2 hours of moving lights around and tweaking before Jodie finally got what she wanted and the whole process probably through her off the creative state of mind she should’ve been in. She still managed to radically change the tone of her script to make it work with her actors (and the location) by asking them to whisper the whole dialog. This simple direction for the delivery of their lines completely transformed the mood of her piece and I can’t wait to see the whole thing in post.
Lesson 2: When it comes to lights, keep it simple at first, tweak afterwards.
WEDNESDAY
On Wednesday, I was only able to come in at the end of Joel’s shoot at the Berkeley Marina (bar area of the Berkeley Yacht Club). The set was much bigger that the two previous ones, and Jodie (who was DP) really had a chance to move back to the proper distances to shoot the dialog in MCU and CU. What Joel was missing was not space but time. The not-very-cooperative manager of the location became a constant pressure for Joel who still managed to get all (but one?) of the shoots we needed before getting out.
Lesson 3: Time is of the essence.
FRIDAY
Shy’s shoot on Friday took place at the Berkeley Artworks Foundry gallery. It was easy setting the lights for the different angles, being in a large space with room to work with.
And I was glad to have 2nd semester student Charles Steadham around. He gave me some input on the lights, and I think that with Joel’s help (DP), we really got the lighting down.
Lesson 4: Setting ground-rules and expectations is essential
SATURDAY
Marlenée’s shoot was stressful to think about in the pre-production phase, but it was a pleasure to be on once we actually started production. Marlenée’s been preparing and thinking about her set for so long that I was worried we might witness some break-down on set if anything went wrong…instead, we had a really smooth production with great actors, a great producer, a great director, and a great crew. For me (DP), The shoot ran smoothly thanks to Marlenée who had taken me to the location a week earlier + we had gone through the whole shot list, etc…in short, she had done the necessary planning. The only thing I have my doubts about is the last part of her piece where we got ambitious and had an extra 4 camera set-ups moving from inside to outside the house…let’s wait and see how this all cuts once in a FCP sequence…
Lesson 5: Planning planning…
SUNDAY
This was finally my own project’s shoot…conclusion you ask?…I’m not sure what to think. I should log and capture all my footage from this Sunday shoot to get a clearer picture of whether I’m satisfied with it. From a logistical point of view, I think things when well: the location being in the heart of SF, in a small café, I think we handled parking and space management once inside the place well. I also had a great, focused crew to work with. Thank you all! Let’s give it up to my producer Joel, to my gaffer Chuck, my sound (and actor: waitress) Marlenée, to my PA Shy, and to Jodie, my DP. Jodie did an impressive job, especially on the dynamic close-ups I asked of her. Kudos. I just feel I got tangled up into the technical elements of the shoot and lost track of the performance. We had some really light changes over the course of the shoot and spent a lot of time adjusting to these changes as the sun poured into the room around 3pm. My actors being relatively inexperienced, and being new as a film director myself, I struggled at times to bring them in the direction I needed them to go….cutting up the screenplay into short takes ended up confusing them …I had worked with them doing a lot of improvs around the relationship between the two characters…but I should have worked the script directly too…

Today, we quickly went through the process of making a shot list with Patrick. It’s a way to start seriously thinking about how to “shoot for the edit”. For this first assignment we’re clearly covering our ass regarding coverage by doing every dialogue line from about 5 camera angles… so a detailed shot list isn’t crucial. But I think that for those who feel up to it, we should definitely, on paper or at least mentally, write down a camera angle for each line before the day of the production. It would help prioritize and refine certain shots over others on the day of, and decrease the likelihood of continuity errors and wasted time.

This reminds me of Patrick’s last lecture (on Tuesday 29th), which was not about a specific task (such as the process of making a shot list), but about the art of being a producer/director: I call it “the art of balancing intuition and planning”…..:

Instinct, gut feelings, intuitions, are the heart of the filmmaker. To me, they represent the few moments we’re in tune with the quiet messages our body senses and emits. When we engage in the creative side of filmmaking, or better yet, engage in all of filmmaking with creativity on our side, we come to life. In the end, that’s what it is, directing (any activity) is simply about being alive 24/7…
Thought, plans, plan Bs, agreements, lists, and schedules are the legs of the director. All these forms of planning give us the organizational legs we need so that when things become shaky (and shit will happen, that’s one thing you can be sure of), we have the extra support to remain focused on the creative side of the production. The lights pop a breaker, there is an actor missing, the battery is out, …but you know where that breaker is, you know what the number is and you’ve got a back-up lead and an extra battery, etc, in short, you’ve planned it all.

Now, if you delegate well, the voodoo of a good balance between intuition and planning will give you a situation like this: 1. The catastrophy happens, 2. but decisions were made before it happened to control it, 3. and you’ve got the mind-set to get your crew to respond quick and right, 4. so you remain focused on what matters on the shot: your creative input.

Thursday:

Came home at 11pm for the 3rd time this week. I think this email to a friend encapsulates the mood:

“Hey Donna,
It sounds like it’s unfortunately falling smack in the middle of our production week. And believe me, it’s Production week with a capital P.
If I could, I would have liked to go shoot this video with you, everything brings some kind to experience…
But because of the way BDFI works (every class contributes to the development of one project), we all have a full production to put together every 7 weeks.
And right now, being the end of production time….it’s rush time….Plus, we work on each other’s productions, so everyone works on about 4-5 projects at the same time, with a production-project including: pitch, original script, location scouting, improvs for character development, script-rewrites, call for auditions, script-rewrites, casting auditions, script-rewrites, call-backs, editing assignments, lighting assignments, rehearsals, final drafts, and finally on location shoots…and then post…So, with my work and 5 production projects going at the same time, I can’t make it.

I hope you can find someone to work with you.”

Monday
Ad infinitum
Patrick’s analogy of the day stuck with me…maybe because he was describing something I never actually had the chance to see. When we started talking about the first holograms and how they were made, my imagination went crazy. Let me explain. Back in the days, rigid holograms apparently had a structure that gave them a peculiar property: if you looked at the hologram plate, you would see whatever image was represented on it, but if you broke the plate in half, the image would remain intact. And as you broke another piece, the image still remained. Break down, break down, break down…and at the end, you would still have the whole image represented on the littlest piece of the hologram.

Ideally, the process of script writing, of storytelling, emulates these holograms: each act, each scene, each dialogue (each word!) should contain the entirety of a feature. Every instant should reflect the whole and lead to the ending. So that when the ending comes, we can all believe in it.

Tuesday

At the beginning of class, Allan took us through the process of calibrating a TV monitor. It was a good brush up for me, because for some reason, I can never remember the exact order in which to do it. In fact, most people don’t event bother. I suppose the process of calibrating a CRT monitor will eventually disappear along with the monitors, and as LCDs take over, new, more “user-friendly” methods of calibrating will become the norm. But until then, let us remember!…Chroma & Phase, then Brightness, then Contrast….once again….Chroma & Phase, then Brightness, then Contrast…repeat after me…
Allan also got us ready for some field trials with the Panasonic HVX-200. I think the exercise helped everyone better grasp the concepts of focal length, proper framing, etc… It’s really nice to start seeing how each class informs the other. Yesterday, Patrick talked of “the sweet spot”….the spot where camera distance to subject and lens choice perfectly match to give you the closest perspective to what you see (or to what you want your audience to see). Today, Allan’s exercise is all about understanding this relationship between camera distance to subject and focal length. Complementarity…yeah baby!

Wednesday

First round
Oooohhh the pain. After hours of pushing back the time to sit down and do it, and a few more hours trying to give birth to something I can be approximately proud of, in the end, I gave birth to a monster of a script. Seriously. Instead of a 3-page scene with dialogue, it was more like a compilation of everything not to do when you right a script: I started writing without a clear idea of who my characters were, or where they were going, or where I was going to take them. I started the scene too early, and got out of it too late. I got bogged down in the words when I didn’t even have the ideas. I talked about “it” rather than showing “it”… the whole thing sounded more like government propaganda, than two people having a human discussion…
So when my turn came to pass out my script to the class, it was hard to hear it read aloud. I’m just happy most students are straight shooters and that I got real, constructive feedback from everyone. I knew what was wrong, I just needed to hear it. First round is over…next draft!

Thursday

Editing! Huuummmm that’s gooooood. Maybe it’s the frame-by-frame accuracy of this craft that I just love? Maybe it’s having the possibility of creating a world according to my own rules? I don’t know, but I just love it.
Our instructor Sheriff (did I misspell your name?) is the man. He gave everyone a fast-forward tutorial about all the actions and matching keys you need to know to operate Final Cut Pro without the mouse. Don’t use the mouse! Otherwise…”MOUSE SYNDROME”! That’s right, you better watch out when you’re spending hours in from of that timeline…don’t let the evil mouse get a hold of your hand. Plus, it makes you a much more efficient editor.
Afterwards, we moved out from the edit suite to go see Patrick for what he called “probably the most important lesson you will ever have in your life”… He pulled out a board, a black marker, and started drawing a canon. And out of it came the canon ball…. if you were there, you know the rest…and if you weren’t, then it’s time you come learn about “ballistics”….

Friday

I have an announcement to make: our Improv instructor Melissa kicks $#@! She is hilarious. Having a 3-hour class with her is like attending live comedy. Melissa cracks jokes without even noticing it, she’s such a character. But beyond the laughter, it’s really encouraging to feel her experience and ease at improv: we’re in good hands. She, like all the other instructors, knows what she’s talking about. It’s clear.
When we started an exercise of improv to develop relationships (where each pair of students picked a place and a type of relationship to act out, and had to have the rest of the class guess what they were), Melissa’s knowledge came right out. After each of our little gigs, she would expand on the many other ways our improvs could’ve gone, she would just invent crazy scenarios on the spot, go from one possibility to another, and make the improbable seem tangible.
Melissa is making me miss theater. It’s been 6 years that I haven’t acted, but she makes me just want to get up, dance, and improv!

Monday- Diving into the matter.

In retrospect, “diving into the matter” is the feeling I have of this first week of film school. Each of the five classes we’ve had, starting with the first production class we had on Monday, were dense with information and offered both structure and inspiring proximity. My expectations have certainly been happily surpassed and school feels like a great warm sea of knowledge in which to dive with confidence.
I’m a medium-format photographer with a background in Environment and Development studies and only recently converted to documentary filmmaking (amen!). I’m mostly interested in witnessing our relationship to the ecological systems that sustain us. Think “River and Tides”, “Darwin’s Nightmare”, or “Baraka”. Documentaries?? You might wonder why I am here, constructing narrative pieces… Good question: among other things, I hope to get a better handle on the construction of the storyline from Screenwriting, gain greater control of my images with Cinematography, learn to better control/create cadence through Editing, and develop my understanding of the delicate relationships between producer, director, and a production team with the Producing-Directing class.

On Monday, Patrick, our Producing-Directing instructor, kicked-off this first semester with a short game that definitely broke the ice that could have prevented some of us from diving in…“What is the most embarrassing moment that comes to your mind from before you were 12? Quick! Don’t think! Just write it down” The exercise can be reminiscent of the section in some teenage magazine: “10 most embarrassing moments, etc…” but what came out of it was otherwise. Story after story, Patrick extracted the universal themes contained in them, and quietly, slowly, made one point loud and clear: “The story is everything, the story is in you, and it’s up to you to tell it your own way.”

Tuesday

Allan, the Cinematography instructor, also dove right into the matter. Even though this first class + presentation of the HVX200 mostly covered things I knew, I was happy to see that it gave to everyone, in a few hours, the basic knowledge needed to operate the cameras. I’m curious to see how the first project’s limiting parameters (booth setting, seated actors -> angles, lighting, etc…) will inform which areas of cinematography we’ll delve into first.
The hands-on camera exercise in the afternoon, which had to be conducted in AUTO mode, was painful (“good-bye control over the image”) but in the end, I got a good sense of the camera’s characteristic curve in auto-mode…conclusion: “100% manual-mode forever, baby!”

Wednesday

Fred’s long experience and the story of his work as a screenwriter was full of advises and cautionary tales. The process of screenwriting is long, demanding, and sometimes ungrateful…no news here. But let’s see what it’s like to take a real bite at it. One thing’s for sure, with my tendency to talk too much, putting words into the screenplay format will do me the greatest good…: “time to be laconic”.

Thursday

Editing covered a lot of bases that half of the class already was familiar with. Hopefully, with John, our TA for the class, we’ll be able to split into two separate groups and move at different speeds/different depths through Final Cut Pro’s ocean of possibilities. Also looking forward to BDFI’s approach to teaching rhythm control and the creation of the arc of a story through editing. Let’s go.

Friday

Improv/acting class: what a trip. Our instructor Melissa is a non-stop stand-up comedy. Really enjoy her humor. But she’s also straight forward in her criticisms and advise. She doesn’t give us that: “you’re all so special” crap. Really impressed by the breadth of her experience too. The short improv exercises with the rest of the group were a good way to finish the week. Having some experience in theater, I thought improv would be easy…but I’m stiff like an old plank of wood…it was nice to see the skills of other students come out: Nicholas should definitely write some comedy.