First Project Preparation
Things are starting to come together and we are making way on our first project. I’m beginning to develop my 3 min two person script. The first week was a solid introduction to what we’ll be doing this semester and week two got the ball rolling. I’m feeling much more confident in my story development. Fred Ritzenberg, our screenwriting teacher has been helping us evolve our scripts and they are becoming much stronger. We’re learning about character development, backstory, and motivation. All three elements are essential to developing a good story.
Our first draft of our script is due next week and the following week we will be casting for our projects. We’re starting to scout locations and we’re beginning to learn about the casting process and how to search for and select actors for our roles. In our acting class I’m discovering what makes a good actor and how to guide and “direct” actors in order to get their best performances. We’ve been doing a lot of improv and short scenes. It really helps to actually step into their shoes. I never realized quite how challenging this craft of acting really is. It’s tough. My respect for actors and their talents has grown exponentially.
On the more technical side of things, in our directing class we went more in depth on setting up basic shots. Patrick showed us the correct technique for framing a shot; shot size; and how to determine the appropriate headroom. It’s one of the many details I think I have taken for granted. It’s one of those things where if it’s done right, it seems so natural that it almost goes unnoticed. But, when it’s not, it’s disturbingly obvious. All week long I’ve been looking at films and noticing when it’s done correctly and when it’s not. It really gives the audience a completely different feel.
At this point, I’m feeling much more confident behind the camera. I know what to look for and the basics of how to create the shot I want. Compared to most of my classmates, I would say that I’m the least technical, but I am still able to keep up with everyone else. Each of us seem to have our own strengths, and everyone works well together in helping out one another.
The thing that I enjoyed the most about class this week was our editing class in which we had a lesson on ‘”ballistics”.
Ballistics is basically an editing concept taken from a fundamental physics theory that every movement has a beginning, middle, end, and settling point. When applied to editing, it produces some of the most amazing and brilliant editing.
This week in class we analyzed the Kanye West video for “Jesus Walks” which was directed by Chris Milk who is one of Patrick’s former students. He learned the same thing we learned this week, and he received “video of the year” award for it.
It was very cool to see how this technique was in every clip of the video and really made it stand out as one of the best. Not that we’re all Chris Milk yet, but our homework this week was to edit our own video using a movie, a song, and our ballistics lesson. I’ve already began this project and it’s lookin good.
I am beginning to see how the fundamentals that we are learning are really going to carry on throughout our careers. It’s not just throwing us behind a camera and letting us run wild, it’s learning the fundamentals and putting them into practice. And, learning what the rules are so that we know when and how to break them to evoke the feelings we want our audience to experience.
