IM DONE

Well the semester is closing and I am done with college. In less then two weeks I will be walking across a stage and receiving my degree. That is assuming that I get a D- or higher in two of my classes. I’m leaving college, the safety net, being independent with being able to call my parents and begging them for money or whatnot. I am forced to grow up, get a job, pay bills, pay college loans back (which I will be paying $330 a month till 2018). My biggest concern is finding a job that can actuality support me. I want to work in entertainment and film, and lets face it, everybody wants you to be willing to work for free.

The problem with people wanting you to work for free is that film is such an exclusive way to make a living that kids that are trying to make it into the business are willing to work for nothing. They loose their self worth and their value because they want their foot in the door in a career that offers no guaranties

Chris Gore (author of Ultimate film festival survival guide) writes on this section. He believes that one of the biggest problems with entertainment is that the people in charge want slave labor, the people trying to break into film are willing to be slaves in the hopes of getting a job in the future.

He later goes on discussing that this was one of the main causes for the writers strike. The studios were taking the writers scripts and posting the episodes online and/or making them write a teaser or mini episodes for the web and did not want to pay them for their extra work (there is more to it but in a nutshell)

My biggest fear is there is no set guild lines of how much someone makes for the job the are working on. It all depends on the project. This means that sometimes to make connections you have to be willing to work for peanuts. But I would like to think of myself as having ethics. I am NOT a slave, I will NOT work for free because making a film is not charities work. But I understand that sometimes you have to take the low paying job to get somewhere better.

But I’m DONE WITH SCHOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Presentation

Friday I debuted my film. I was so nervous. Not that it would play or anything would go wrong, but what people would think. I thought that there would be three different responses, 1) that they would not think it was funny at all 2) that it would offend people and not be good at all 3) they would think I was great. And that scared the hell out of me.

My film was going to be played after a documentary about Leukemia. The audience was crying and sad, then here comes Josh’s “romantic comedy.” The film started playing and instantly I got a lot of laughs. There was some random chuckles here and there, but the jokes that were written in went over well.

After the viewing we had a Q & A section. I got asked a lot of good questions, including how much of this was planned out and how much was just shot and good luck. I put a great deal of time into preproduction. I was on a very tight filming schedule so everything had to be thought out. Another one was were did I come up for the concept of the film. There is no flattering answer for this, so I danced around the fact that we were poking fun at a friends views.

I also got a lot of feedback, some of the people that were there were impressed with my ability to build sequences. I was told that my film was better the Jimm Needle’s, which is huge because he is so critical about film, and the stuff that he does really looks good.

I was a bit disappointed in the set up of the art show where we presented our projects at. We never really knew what to expect because people never communicated with us what the details were. The time was changed on us many times. It went from 6:30 to 8:30 then our film debut was to be at 8:30 so we invited people at 8:30 to come and watch the film. Then it was moved from 6:00 to 8:00 and we were still planning on showing our films at 8:30. In fact, the show went from 6:00 till 7:15 then our films directly following. Then because we told people to be there at 8:30 we had another viewing. I was furious with that because the people I invited showed up to see the film and there was nobody around. And when I got back and checked my phone a ton of people were calling to find out what the situation was. I think that the whole setup was poorly communicated to us, and we suffered because of it.

Another thing that bothered me was our advertisement posters had spelling errors in them. These posters were missing words and had words left out of them. They looked like a third grade kid wrote them. This reflects so poorly on us. My name is branded with these posters and there is spelling errors all over them. This is part of my senior research, and is suppose to demonstrate that I deserve, and have earned the degree from Westminster. Instead it makes me look like an uneducated buffoon.

Nothing is ever going to be perfect, but the night went well. I am proud of my film, and the next step is to send it to film festivals.

What I think

My senior broadcasting capstone is coming close to an end. This week I had to design a poster for my presentation for the Senior Art Show. This was very hard for me to do. I am not a graphic artist. I know the basics, but I am far from being an expert by any means. The posters turned out well, and overall I am happy with how they turned out.

The other thing that I have been working on is editing my film. Sifting through tons upon tons of video and audio tracks is a nightmare. But I am pushing through and it is coming together very well. I am 95% done editing. The next step is to add some sound effects and finalize all the video. It’s looking good. I am excited to see the final product.

I learned a valuable lesson, no matter how much footage you have you always want more. I have over 180 minutes of video and I still wish that I have more to work with.

Editing is a bit tricky, because this is the first time that any of us has ever acted on film we were not sure what to expect. There is a lot of motion before the take, and some scenes are very hard to edit because of that.

Mr. Weaver asked me the other day if another student wanted to do this project should he let them. YES! If the student is passionate about his/her project they are going to work a lot harder and willing to put in the extra effort. But I caution, keep dialog to a minimum, keep locations to a minimum, and work hard. There is a huge time constraint on working on a film during capstone, but where there is a will there is a way.

I have spent over12 hours of pre production over 20 hours of filming over 5 hours of voice tracking countless hours trying to think of topics to blog about, 30 minutes blogging , and another 20 hours editing the film.

This project has been a huge undertaking but I am glad I did it. The script is original, the music is original, everything about this is my own work, and I am extremely proud of what I have done.

The Death of Originality

There is a saying that anything that can be done has already been done. I would like to add that anything that can be done has been done and will be done over and over and over again. Lets face it, for simple reasons when something works there are thousands of copycats that are ready to dig their hand in the pot and see if they can pull anything from this. The thought is throughout every medium of media. Don’t get me wrong I am not saying that this is a bad thing or me standing on a soapbox preaching to be original because I just found out that my film is a DIRECT rip-off of a film that was made about three years ago (and I did not know that it was not done). Yet I suggest that if you are going to “be inspired by another work” then take it and make it your own.

This thought is no more prominent then in “sampling” in the R&B and rap scene. Using beats and loops from music in the 70’s 80’s and today are put into new music for their purpose. And to be honest most of them are done very well. The trend died down a bit but in the late 90’s and in early 2000 it was rampit. Sean Puffy Combs, Usher, and Biggie Smalls, were masters of this. They took something old and pumped their own thought into it.

Another example is with South Park. They did a whole episode that was dedicated that everything on T.V. has been done. Butters, a goofy sidekick of the show, exclaims that “the Simpsons did it” as another character tries to do something original that the viewers have not seen. Going as far as developing a Goldberg to extract frosting out of donuts, when much to his shock, Bart Simpson was developing the same thing for that week.

Film is not exempt from this field. But my generation is a bit more oblivious to this fact. Many people in their 20’s do not know that Mission Impossible was a television show long before Tom Cruise was the star of the franchise that was pumped out; or that House on Haunted Hill was a remake from 1958 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051744/).

None is more obvious then the Star Wars Trilogy. The films were first digitally re-mastered, but that feed fuel to the fire spawning a total remake of the first three films (which were the last three in the series) and then giving birth to the prequels to complete the series.

Recently the trend is continuing. The 1980 film Prom Night is being remade, this film was poor at best when it first came out, just remaking it does not make this film any better. I hold my optimism for a decent turn at the box office, setting no recorded, being torn apart by the critics, and disappointing anyone who spends the 8 dollars and up to see this.

But Prom Night is not the only film that is being remade. Get Smart is getting new breath blown into it, as Steve Carell takes on the roll of Maxwell Smart (a clueless spy). I do believe this will be done well. The show itself was Nominated for 2 Golden Globes. Another 9 wins & 7 nominations.

Overall there is nothing wrong with breathing new life in something old. It has been done millions of times, and ever William Shakespeare was not original. Take it and make it your own.

Apple vs. PC

There has always been a great debate and I find myself in the middle of it at this current moment. I am looking to get a new computer, because frankly my 5 yr old laptop is on its dying days. I have no internet, there is not a R key, the cd tray cover falls off and it’s now a separate attachment. It’s about time to do something about it.

The great debate that I am talking about is to go with a PC or a MAC. Mac has pushed their products and they are becoming better and better, while PC is much of the same just better equipment.

I want to use this computer for graphic images, editing and all sorts of things. So its making me really consider buying a MAC because they are very powerful and you don’t have to worry about the system crashing.

But we still live in a PC world (that is slowly changing away from that) and is everything compatible. So what I’m saying is am I going to be able to build something in my personal computer and then work on it on another. That is the biggest thing that is pushing me away from the MAC.

There are programs out there that allow MAC’s to run windows on them and it can change the operating system. But why would you buy a MAC to run windows… it’s a mute point to me then.

I am tossed between where to turn. On one hand a mass amount of graphic work is done on MAC. But is not an absolute and, in fact more people are moving back to PC, because any upgrade done to a MAC has to be external.

The problem is getting a non bias opinion because you have your PC lovers and your MAC lovers, and there is no wiggle room. In the PCL you are stupid for buying a MAC and the IMACL they can’t understand why you would ever want anything other then a MAC.

Overall I want a MAC but I’m just not comfortable to jump on the bandwagon. I think I am going to hold off and go with a PC still. I am far from loving the idea, but I think for me it’s the safe bet, but I’m still looking

Lights, Camera, Action

This week I filmed my capstone. I really don’t know what to say about it. It was a crazy experience. In all practicality I went from having a script last Sunday to filming 6 days later. It has been a marathon. But it is filmed!!!

There was a lot of different emotions that ran threw my mind while filming. Before I got to the locations we were working at there was a lot of stress and anxiety that people would show up. It worked out great. I always had just the right amount of people there. In all honesty I wish I could have had more, but it’s not a big deal.

Filming went smooth. There were no major issues with equipment, or any technical problems. The one thing that we did run into was while filming on a street the police stopped us. He wanted to know what we were doing, and wanted to make sure we were being safe. But not to worry because like a good camera man they kept filming during the interaction. So now there is video of me talking to the police with my co-star.

Using the locations that we used worked out great. The people there were more then willing to help us out in any way we needed. Including forcing one girl to be an extra for our film.

We have roughly 150 minutes of film. Majority of this was bloopers. It was very hard to keep a strait face threw most of the filming. So it took a lot longer, but was incredibly fun.

My friends and everybody who I asked to help out pulled through. If I didn’t have the support that I had, this would of fell flat on its face as well. A lot of people took a lot of stress off of my shoulders. But it is filmed and ready for post production.

The next step is to step into the audio studio and record some voiceover tracks. I am looking forward to that!

A new start

This post was suppose to be last weeks, but do to the fact the Westminster College is on spring break, and the school fails to recognize that students are still doing work, everything is locked up and did not give me the ability to get online.

Anyways

This week was “start from scratch week.” My original film script was not lifting off the ground at all. There was one road block after another, and I had to make a choice of cutting my losses and moving forward. Like I said before I did a great deal of pre planning and had a backup script with me.

I decided to keep my filming schedule and that gave me a week to do all of the preproduction. I dove head first into working on this script clawing away at it and trying to get all the preproduction done. Site location, talent, crew, story boars, music, the whole nine yards, and some how I managed to get it done.

The locations were a breeze. Every person that I talked to were more then willing to bend over backwards to help me out. The gave me the run of their stores and catered to any needs that I had. I cannot say how much of a stress relieve it was.

Music, my friend is a genius and after just giving him a basic rundown of the script he had an idea for music and already cut demos to most of the tracks.

Talent, well that was interesting. I don’t know how to piddle around this topic without giving the story away but let’s just say I had some very interesting phone calls with companies to try and borrow supplies.

Storyboards were worked out, shot and editing script, as well. I was just shocked of how well everything flowed together.

lessons I learned

Lessons I have learned from anything that I have done is always have a backup plan. That includes if a camera breaks, have another. Bring extra tapes, extra power cords and extra anything. Reading one of my books, it has an intire section on dealing with backup plans. And within that there is another section of advice geared towards low budget films. The idea is to make sure for everything that you have going on that there is a backup plan, including talent. My lead talent backed out and I have been having trouble with finding people that would be able to replace him. So what am I going to do?

Well Josh planed ahead and maybe to the enth degree. I did not plan on a backup for people but I did have a backup film incase this film did not work. After all I want to graduate. I was thinking that the film would turn out poorly, and I would not show something that was poorly done. So I always had another script and a film idea on the back burner.

Why did my film fail? First the time frame. The weather decided it was going to stay winter and destroyed any chance of me filming the scenes that are suppose to have a spring or summer look. The time frame that I have means that there is NO time to wait.

Second, I don’t want to say pre planning because I did a ton, but I might of focused on the wrong things. I don’t think I focused enough effort on gathering talent and assumed that they would be able to just fall into place, which was not the case.

But overall college and capstone is designed (in my eyes) to teach lessons for the “real world,” well I have learned a lot from this project. But I am not scared yet. I am still planning on filming over spring break and everything else is scheduled as planned.

Murphy's Law

It’s really funny to me that the main characters last names are Murphy. The name spawned from the famous Murphy’s Law, where what can go wrong will go wrong. Boy I should have picked a different last name like Mr. and Mrs. John “nothing is going to go wrong on my capstone film.” I know it’s a lengthy last name but maybe I jenksed myself, and well I wish that name was able to be used.

I have been hitting one road block after another with filming, and everything along with this, and I see right now why low budget films are such a pain in the butt. Frankly my budget is zero and that in itself is its own problem. I have to beg people to give up a TON of their time to help me out, and not everybody is willing to do that. Besides playing a juggling game with my talents schedule so that I can get this done, talent and locations and whatnot are a pain too.

I finally locked all my location shots and I called the cast members to give them dates. These, in all reality, are the only days that everybody is able to be there to shoot. Calling my lead to talk with him about dates, he is not able to work on the film anymore. Which this puts me in quite a pickle.

My options are as followed

I act in it as was planned from day one, and I find another person to run camera

I run camera and find another person that will work

I run camera just grab somebody and pray for the best.

Frankly I am trying to find the silver lining in the situation. Hell, Jack Nicholson was not even close to the top three picks for Randle P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, and look how that turned. I am really nervous about the situation considering that I am planning on shooting in 2 weeks and I do not have a lead. ANY IDEAS PLEASE!!!!!!

My Script

I have never written a script before in my life and at some points I feel like I have bitten off more then I can handle at times. I want to make the best film that I can and frankly I am not a writer. I am getting better but I’m still a far way off from where I should be. I had my friend take my script and review it and proof it and the amount of notes and questions about the script. To put a long story short I still have a lot of work to do and not a lot of time

His suggestions are very valid, and ideas or thoughts that I did not think about. I think that the hardest part about this process is the fact that I have the story in my head and I am struggling to put it on paper. And not only putting it on paper but making the story real.

Jimm (my friend who has been helping me write, and is my alumni advisor), feels that there is an issue with my characterization. I agree after reading back threw the pages. My struggle is how to add more characterization in the pages, and keep the film around fifteen minutes. Jimm thinks that my story is good.

My life just freed up majorly because the play that I was in is now over and that means that I will be putting 120% of my time working on my project. My scheduling for shooting is locked and ready to go. Now it is a race of time to get my script finished in time.

I have decided to put a little more work upon my shoulders and not only have a script and a shooting script but also an editing script so that I have an even better idea of what kind of shots I need.

But back onto topic because I did stray a little bit (I enjoy this being a stream of consciousness blog). Over all the input I have been getting is good. There is a lot of work that still needs done which is frustrating because I thought that my writing part was finished. But I am not worried or stressed just anxious.

My Progress

I will be the first to admit that I have slacked majorly on my broadcasting capstone this semester. Part of it is a play that I am takes up majority of my time, and when I get a second of free time I sit and do nothing. Another part is that I am drained from other school assignments. And I think a major part is my internship cuts into a huge chunk of my sleeping time. But the play will be over this coming up weekend, and my internship is now over.

But I have not been totally dragging on my BC capstone. I have been keeping up on my blogs. I finalized my script. I have talent and I’m racking my brain trying to put together a shooting schedule. Location scouting is almost done and majority of my sites are picked and locked in. For my final scene that needs police, and New Wilmington dept. said they are willing to help out.

I am excited about the talent that I have. Adam Rady graduated last year from Westminster College. He is a great actor and is committed to working with me. Adam and I have worked on a short film project together before so I am comfortable with working with him.

I also locked in some key crew positions. I have a sound engineer, Joe Husak, which is amazing. I am not worried at all about the audio quality, which is a key part of a film.

Travis Levers, is going to be my lighting tech. Travis has been running lights for over three years. It will be nice to have someone who knows what is going on so I do not have to worry about that.

But not everything is smooth sailing. I am an avid believer in using story boards for anything production wise. From my experience some times it’s easier to have a visual representation then trying to explain. I broke my finger the other day, and it’s a struggle to hold a pen or pencil or even a computer mouse, so I need to come up with a way to overcome this obstacle. (I’m open to any and all suggestions)

Overall I made a lot of headway in the last 2 weeks with my project. It took a lot of stress out of my life for a tiny bit ( that will be returning as I start filming). I have a solid idea of what is going on and don’t feel rushed, somehow.

Showing my project

The issue of presenting my capstone is beginning to become a bear. For my capstone I have applied for a grand from the school so that I will have a small budget to work with. If I am awarded this grant I have to present my project at the Undergrad Research Symposium. Not a big deal because I have to present my capstone in some fashion, and I have to be at the URS for a grant that I was given to participate at a theatre competition. The issue becomes that I am signed up for the Art Show to present and début my film. That is a few weeks after the URS. I am not worried about time (in the sense of rushing to finish my film), more that I made a commitment to the art department, and a peer of mine (who will also be débuting her documentary the same day).

My question is how involved does my part of the URS have to be for me to fulfill my requirements to them if I am awarded grant money. Is a poster with pictures, text about the research, and a trailer feasible? Or will I have to show my film? Or because I am showing it at the art show do I need to present anything for the URS?

These questions are hanging over my head and quite frankly stressing me out. The first thing I need to find out is if my application has even been approved. Overall my film is starting to take shape, script is in order. I began to round up talent (which is a lesion for another blog). But I feel confident in this.

Ranting and Raving

This post was inspired by my friends ranting and raving about movies. My attempt to explain the different types of film making, and what you think is true about some types of film really isn’t.

In the film world there are two types of movies, studio and independent. Studio films are made by studios, and they are putting their own money into a film expecting a turnover. Independent films have private investors that are hoping for profit. In reality the two are the same, but who is fronting the bill is the difference. Independent films typically thought of as being seen as “artsy,” or bad or cheap, or many other things. I feel that there is a bias that when people know that they are watching an indie film. Most people don’t realize is that most companies have a section that is devoted to just supporting indie filmmaker, which doesn’t that create a paradox? Even companies that have nothing to do with film are jumping on the bandwagon.

A small example of this is Section Eight production (now closed). Section Eight was an independent production company that was fronted by a major motion studio. With star power behind the company (George Clooney) the films were independently made, with a studio backing.

Staying on that thought a movie that people don’t realize is indie film that people love is Oceans 11. Section Eight produced this and paid the writer, Clooney, $1.00.

Is having a studio movie better than an indie film? In some aspects I believe it does, there is money that is there. And well frankly it takes money to make a film. On the other hand there is greater pressure to make a profit. Doing this the studios typically try to appeal to the mass audiences.

Both sides of film have their problems. Story telling for a profit causes people to create art for money and not for betterment of though. There isn’t anything wrong with this honestly, because your message can still be told through this medium. I guess what I am saying is that just because something is called indie doesn’t mean that it is not a good film.

just my thoughts

I’m back in school for my final semester of college, and I can’t even began do describe my feelings. I think that they span the whole spectrum of the human emotions. I am excited that I will be done, worried that I will screw something up and not be able to graduate and what I’m going to do after school. Anxious for the future but also hesitant of what that path will bring.

Already I have been getting a lot of questions of what I am going to do after I graduate, if I’m going to move stay around here or go home and live with my parents, and frankly I have no idea. I’m young and don’t have much keeping me at bay from being able to just pick up and leave, besides the lack of funds.

For fun I have been applying to T.V. stations in Hawaii just to see what would happen. The sad part is I know I can’t afford to move out there, because I would have to start totally from scratch (and well I can’t frankly drive my car out there). Just to get out there and if I do bring my car it will cost upwards of $3,000 just to get to the island.

There are so many choices of what I want to do and so many paths along the way. I interned at WYTV over Christmas break and it just showed me once again how much I dislike news. I think that the business aspect of making a buck really kills the ability to show good stories. In a three hour chunk of time I was sent out on three stories. There was not the ability to get good video good interviews, just turn on the camera for five minutes and boom get out.

I really want to follow my passion of story telling and work with film. But I am not the only person in the world that shares my passion, so how do I make myself stand out. I think the path that I will ultimately take is trying to find good compelling stories and try to independently fund the films myself. Good theory but putting into practice this notion is where the trouble starts.

I know this log has been random and hasn’t quite flowed to one topic to another, but these are just some things that I have been thinking about. I have a lot of choices for me to make in the next couple of months that will change my life and direct me where I will be. Frankly its scary.