First day
Today was my first day at Berkeley Digital Film Institute and I still can’t believe I’m here. On our first day I met all of my first semester classmates in the program. We’re a quiet group on the surface but the fact that we all decided to have lunch together after a three our lecture and mixer with upper classmen and faculty says a lot.
Our class with Patrick today gave us an intro to our upcoming semester and some perspective on what it would really mean to become a filmmaker. He shared his beginnings with the class, something I’m sure each of us will eventually come back to draw upon. We even learned a few Hollywood terms, like vetted and asset. Your asset is your product or project. To have your script vetted is to have it critiqued and reviewed.
Later we reviewed a few scenes from the film “Se7en” by David Fincher. In those short scenes we were able to see how Fincher exercised the preservation of momentum. For example if the actors are performing, looking, or moving on screen right that is essentially kept until they stop, reverse or change scenes. We also reviewed Axis of Connection, the 180° line, and even matching the proportions of the actor’s heads.
We ended with sharing our own personal stories of embarrassing moments. Patrick showed us how our stories have themes that fit into the grander scheme of the human experience. There is always a universal theme that our experiences and eventually projects will draw from. The importance of recognizing that is just as important as telling the story.
At the end of the day I think everybody walked away feeling that we were really on to something good.
