In our second week we’re past the introductions and quickly wading into the deep end of film making. We spent a fair amount of time with our hands on the cameras this week, learning how to use a tripod and setting the camera at various distances to see the effect on perspective and ‘feel’ of the subject. The camera controls are starting to make a little more sense now, too. We also started learning the magic of editing, which is basically all about capturing rhythm of motion and sound. We’re going to put this to the test by creating a 1 minute music video over the next couple of weeks. Everyone has now pitched their story several times and by the end of the week, I think we all have a better idea of what’s going to work or not. The word of the week is ‘verisimilitude’, and we’re all working on getting our story ideas to have the appearance of truth. Our acting teacher exposed many of the holes in our stories and pointed out ways that we can make our first project harder or easier by spec’ing the right cast. That’s going to take some real creative effort for sure!

Having recently left the corporate world after some 27 years, I was not expecting to find myself at a film school a couple of months later, but here I am, trusting my gut that this is the right thing to do right now and hoping that following my heart leads to work that I’m excited about and have a passion for, as this was something that was disappearing from my work after many years in the computer world.

I’m enjoying the buzz of a totally new direction, with new people, in a new environment, and a creative one at that and my mind is once again filled with new ideas and taking in new information, which feels good. I’m thoroughly enjoying being around people who are also living and breathing new found creative energy and, so far, seem to be excited about all this as I am. The hard part is having a family to support while I make this mid-life course change, but they’re all behind me on this, so for now, I’m plunging in and taking the fork in the road, to paraphrase Yogi Berra.

This week we started to get familiar with the basics of movie making, got some real hands on camera time, started learning about the construction of scripts, got an intro to FinalCut and did some fun improv games to begin our learning about acting and casting. Everyone has a passion for their subject area and it seems like we’ll get excellent assistance and tutoring as we get into our projects.

More as it happens!