Monday, January 14, 2008
In our second Producing/Directing class, we gained more technical knowledge that will help us in our approaching shoots. We also watched a series of clips from directors who did the booth scene well in their films. Patrick evaluated our pitches on his scale of one to three, all of us striving for that three, and no one there yet. He gave us lots of very constructive feedback and helped to ask the questions of us that will get our scripts up to par (maybe even up to a three!).

Tuesday, January 14, 2008
Moving into a new classroom, we reviewed our lab footage from last week with Allen. The camera helps put us ahead as even the most bland images have redeeming aspects when shot through the HVX 200. Allen carefully critiqued our explorations in cinematography, if they deserve being called that, and imagined with us the various scenarios in which one might shoot this way or that way.
Following our class, our lab assignment was to find the “sweet spot” on the HVX 200. We set out to get footage of our classmates every distance from 30 feet to 30 inches from their faces, asking them to sit still all the while. We skip our cinematography class next week due to MLK Day, so we’ll review that footage the week after that.

Wednesday, January 15, 2008
In Screenwriting, we reviewed approximately half of the classes scripts. I had so much fun imagining the scenarios my classmates had constructed and I was impressed by the level of intelligent criticism that everyone had to offer each other. I go next week and I’m sure I’ll be very nervous and the harshest critic of myself.

Thursday, January 16, 2008
In Editing, we had our first introduction to what I am most excited to learn: the BDFI editing style “Ballistics.” We watched some clips of previous student work to see Ballistics in action and were given an assignment to cut up some of our favorite footage according to the principles we had learned. I think we all were excited to have an editing assignment that had such simple requirements (1 minute long to music, any footage) so that we could really work on everything we’ve been learning.

Friday, January 17, 2008
In Improv Acting we worked on establishing relationships. Two of us would take two cards: one giving us a scenario and the other a relationship. We would then have to act out the scenario with our classmates guessing the type of relationship between the two of us. We saw that lovers were very easy to convey, while siblings, particularly older siblings, could be hard to differentiate from friends (or enemies!). Overall, I think we all were a lot more relaxed and at ease and felt less pressure to try to be funny in this game and instead just tried to act well.