We need some God***n walkie-talkies in here!

That was the defining line from miss Franco today.

First, however, our class. Today we discussed the possibilities for amateur filmmakers in today’s industry. I think it’s an unparalleled time for filmmakers and I’m excited and glad that I’ve had a chance to be a filmmaker in this time. After that discussion we also split into groups to finish shooting a few lines and also work on possible rough cuts for a scene from The Jack Nicholson Seat.

My real day began after class. Kathleen and I rushed down to Lincoln to the Nebraska Independent Film Group President’s apartment to pick up the rental equipment we’re using for our film Ebullition (working title). We then hurried back to Omaha to shoot at Old Chicago. We shot a few shots of a car leaving the parking lot and traveling down Cass. We need to shoot more to finish it, but we wrapped that scene for today. 

This evening then, our cast and crew met at my house to shoot another scene. After dark, we took our new lighting and sound equipment to the test. We had a huge difficulty with our sound. All seemed clear on the mixer, boom, and headphones while shooting. After looking at the footage, however, we discovered that next to no sound was being recorded. It took much tweaking of the sound mixer to finally get the appropriate level of sound. My guess is roughly 15-20 takes to even get the sound right. We finished that shot and our next challenge came in the form or lights. No, we’re not totally incapable. We got the lights on an everything. However, our shot was an exterior one an a driveway, but had an issue when trying to get the correct lighting. We either had shadows on the garage door in the back or we had too much obvious light on our actresses faces. It was getting too late, so we had to close up shot. The plan is to finish the scene (along with others) tomorrow night. Yikes.

It was fun the entire time though. I had a blast, it challenged me, and it was a learning experience. I would liken it to trying to learn to surf while swimming constantly against the current. Anyway, it is almost two in the morning and I have class tomorrow and a full day of work and shooting. Night!

Matt

a cameraman’s life.

I found out that it’s not easy being a camera. I recently was the camera man for our shoot of some of the side scenes in the Humanities entrance. I found two things to be extremely difficult.

1. Keeping the camera still without a tripod and after standing around waiting while holding the camera.
2. Adjusting the camera’s white balance and shutter speed to account for the intense outside light coming in. It made it extremely difficult given that I was standing in the doorway having to deal with both the dim interior and the over-lit exterior.

All that being said, I really enjoyed the experience of working with the camera. I liked trying to figure out the best angles, and learning a little bit about the technical side of the camera work. I’ll be back later, I got to get back to Brent’s class.

Matt

“The past is only the future with the lights on.”

A first scene.

Yesterday morning I was able to make it out to Creighton with Kathleen to shoot the first scene for The Jack Nicholson Seat. It was a very interesting experience, and I’m glad to say it didn’t ruin my desire to be a filmmaker, it did quite the opposite. I was the boom operator for the day, and I think I was only told to get out of the frame two or three times out of the many takes we had. I found this to only be a problem when I wasn’t right next to the camera because it was a little difficult to tell exactly how zoomed in the camera was and what constituted ‘in’ and ‘out’ of the shot. Another issue I came across was a lack of communication as to when we were filming. After a take I would rest the boom on the ground because my arms were tired only to have Brent look over at me because he was recording and the boom wasn’t in place. Obviously, part of the problem was my less-than-professional work, but I think it was made more difficult by the fact that after a few takes we more or less dropped the more official roles of cameraman and director as Brent took over camera work. This in itself is not a problem, but it leads to the problem we had. We no longer had two different people calling for quiet on the set, roll camera, speed, and action. We also lost the call of cut, so we were more or less filming constantly. In the future I think we will all be more on the same page if we maintain the roles assigned and keep to filming protocol.

That said, I did have an awesome time getting the hang of the boom mic. I was also able to insert a bit of director-ish help when one of our actresses was having trouble with a line. That was probably one of the coolest parts of the whole day for me; getting to be a part of solving a problem or issue in real time and get past it to finish our filming. I look forward to more opportunities like that, and am glad my directoral skills seem to exist.

That’s all I got for now…I have class tomorrow.

Matt

“You said ‘Wait,’ before that line last time”

That was my recurring theme from today. I was acting Script Supervisor and gave it my all. I found it was not too difficult to take notes during the master take about how the script was changed by actors. The really hard part turned out to be the actions. Remembering which chairs had been moved, where actors were looking, and such small movements like that were a little tough to keep up on. Overall though, it was not a bad job.

I’m pretty excited to see how what we did today looks today after some quick editing. I’ve done a little bit of editing and love doing it, so I’m pumped to see it done by a professional such as Dr. Spencer. 

I recently got my MacBook Pro and had it come with Final Cut Express. Having never used Final Cut before, I’m pretty overwhelmed with all the things it can do. So, I’m diving right into the user’s manual and am pretty excited to use it for the feature/short I’m filming soon.

Not sure if I’m at 250 words, but this will have to do it for now. Excited for tomorrow!

Matt

Late Night Excitement

No, not that kind, unfortunately. After getting home from an epic mid-storm outdoor game of capture the flag with some friends, I followed Brent’s link here and set up my WordPress blog. So far, so good. 

The excitement comes when I got my email about the new iPhone 3G and the coming MobileMe software from Apple. I recently got a MacBook Pro and new iPod touch, and have completely become a Mac person. It was a rough departure from my Windows-filled background, but the transition is complete. I got .Mac with my laptop, and am excited for all the updates MobileMe has to offer. I could sit here and write about it all night, but in the off chance that someone reads this, I’d hate for them to think this is all I care about. That said, I’m tired, and have class tomorrow, so goodnight, all.

Links: 
iPhone 3G
MobileMe

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