My First 5 Weeks at BDFI
Wow, it’s hard to believe that we’ve only been in school for five weeks! So far, we’ve experienced the tumultuous first stage of movie making known as pre-production. Planning for a short film and making it happen takes a lot of passion and patience. I’ve learned that you have to be able to handle high stress situations because in pre-production, there will be many times when things will not go as planned.
I’ve become close with my classmates. Although we do not share the same levels of experience, I have never felt that I could not go to them and ask them questions with out feeling intimidated or a bother. I feel the exact same way about our instructors. They provide time outside of class to help us with our projects and for this reason I have never felt lost or unsure of my progress.
The first week, we started with lectures on the basics of directing/producing on Monday, Cinematography on Tuesday, Screenwriting on Wednesday, Editing on FCP on Thursday and Acting on Friday.
In the third week, we were assigned our first editing assignment, which was to edit a music video together. Sharif, made it easy to learn this program because he took the time to answer every single question no matter how small or big. I’ve worked with FCP before but relearning it with Sharif has made me more confident with using the program.
In these 5 weeks, I’ve learned so much about the instructors through their stories about their experiences in the business. It comforts me to know that these are real down to earth people who had to start from the bottom to get to where they are now. I’ve also learned a lot about myself as a filmmaker. I am still developing the type of films I want to make.
As far as where I am on my project, I am constantly re-writing my script and expect to up to my actual shoot day; I have my location down, thanks to my producer Chris; my actors are cast and I’ve done a technical scout with my wonderful crew. I am set to shoot this week and in the process of arranging catering for my shoot as well as rehearsal with my actors. In addition, I am also producing two other students’ shorts. Producing is a lot of work, but I absolutely love every minute of it.
One thing about BDFI is that you’ll never know who you’ll meet and what opportunities will come up. In my 3rd week of class, I helped upper division classmates with their auditions. I was walking a talent down the stairs and saw in the hallway MC Hammer with the dean of our school, Patrick. I later found out that he was there to meet with Patrick about a new project. It turns out that he ended up recruiting two of our students to work on his next music video, so awesome!
It’s funny because none of us realized that it has been 5 weeks into the semester. We have 10 more to go but I’m sure it will go by before we know it. I’ve learned so much and have definitely accomplished a lot. I’m excited for what’s to come.
Michelle Chan
