Cucalorus

Cucalorus was really fantastic, I had the best time at this festival! This was the first time I got to experience anything like it, I went to a few shows last year but did not have a screening pass since I wasn’t in the major. I think I went to a total of fifteen shows and workshops over those six days. As a result I’m way behind in all four of my production classes and haven’t slept more than three hours a night for the last three days, but it was totally worth it. I couldn’t honestly pick a favorite film out of all of them, but Port City really stuck with me. The film was a sort of light hearted comedy, nothing too serious which was a nice break after seeing Mississippi Be Damned which was a terrific thought provoking film that left me in tears. What really stuck with me after seeing Port City was the general feeling of community at the center stage theatre. Nearly everybody I knew was at that screening, even people who generally don’t go to movies. It was great seeing something that was done right here at home, especially since it was good. Its just cool to recognize the locations throughout the movie, makes one appreciate living here even more than usual. The shots of the river really brought on sentimental feelings for me, which is odd, because I never thought I would come to call this place home until the festival this year. The show was sold out, the theatre was packed, and I just felt like I was at some large family reunion in which I didn’t know everyone but that didn’t matter all that much. I guess there was a communal energy in the room, which came forth when people laughed in unison. The Q and A was very short, I sort of wish it went on for longer but I understand how it can be a little awkward to stand on stage before hundreds of people. The director, producer, and actors all looked like they were ready to get out of the lime light, which is totally fine with me since I tend to think that a little humility couldn’t hurt anybody in this business. Like I said, the film itself was great, not too complicated, but sometimes that’s exactly what people need, something to entertain them, take them out of their world and make them happy. The story had a few interesting twists and the character development was amazing. The director said that he was trying to bring forth the story of the urban south, and I believe that he and his crew definitely accomplished this. One thing that amazed me was that he said they shot the film in some crazy short time, I think around 14 days. This is astounding to me, probably because I’ve never worked with a crew of more than five people, but the fact that they shot a feature length film in such a short period of time in incredible. They must have done a whole lot of detailed planning to pull this off. Anyways, this festival in general has inspired me to work as hard as I can on projects outside of school. The leader of the “Don’t quit your day job” workshop told us that as beggener film makers quantity should matter more than quality, meaning that we need to get out there and make as many films as we can, so that we can learn more and more and develop a personal style. I’m taking this message to heart, and hope to have a work play in the next festival, and if not that, at least get to the point where I’m submitting something.

48 hour video race

I had a blast with the 48 hour video race! Seriously, I live for this kind of stuff. I’ve always felt that my work comes out best when I’m under severe pressure. I remember when I picked up the mystery props I started to conceptualize what sort of film I wanted to make. Something trippy, I thought, experimental, with lots of movement. At that moment I decided that I would be doing this movie using my Kodak easy share still camera. Although this camera had a video setting I thought it would be more fun/challenging to do it all with still photos. At first I planned on mixing these photos in with some found footage, and maybe even animating some of the movement in aftereffects, but after I saw that we had shot more footage then was necessary to the one minute, I decided to let go of those ideas and instead spend my available time on perfecting the editing of the stuff I already had. I didn’t actually start working on this until Wednesday of that week. One of my best friends here was kind enough to help me, which was pretty fantastic, I don’t know anybody else who would sit around with me for five straight hours working on taking 800 + photographs of jars slowly moving around, lol. When I was shooting the stop motion, I basically went off from my experience with the multi plane assignment we did earlier this year. This is probably why I ended up taking more photographs then was actually necessary. I started off shooting each separate movement five different times, eventually that got extremely frustrating, since my camera sometimes takes up to twenty seconds to process one single photograph. Eventually I went to shoot each action twice. Ironically when I brought the images into final cut, it didn’t seem like those extra three shots made much of a difference. What I had forgotten about during the shoot, is that one can slow animation down to as low as ten frames per second, and still have it look good, which is what I ended up doing during editing. For some reason played at 24fps the footage looked pretty terrible, really jumpy, and didn’t give the viewer enough time to register what was going on on screen. So I slowed it down. One really cool thing that my friend suggested ended up working surprisingly well. We decided to use the song “One more time” by daft punk to go along with the stop motion. He thought it would be neat to play this song over and over again while we were working. I don’t know how it happened, but I think it influenced us subconsciously, because when I went to edit in the music, it almost seemed to fit perfectly. I actually think we’re going to be working with stop motion again next week, not for school. I’ve been a giant fan of Tool’s stop motion videos for years, although I must admit I don’t actually listen to them all that much unless I’m watching something they created, and I would love to be able to do something equally amazing at some point soon. The only regret I have about this assignment is that I wish I would have tried several other camera less filmmaking techniques, like using a scanner or copier, but I guess I could always try those things on my own time. I’m a firm believer that once an idea is formed and the method for producing that idea is set, the best work comes when people still to their original plan. I know this from experience, because I used to be that person that would completely change their project or paper half way through, and the results were always less than favorable.

3 D cameras

My experience with the 3D camera workshop was actually quite a surprise. For some reason I thought it would have been structured like the bolox Saturday shoot, where each group would get a few hours to plan and shoot their ideas. Granted I sat in the class room with the people I would be working with making masks, and we could have very well planned out the action we were about to film while we were sitting there, but alas that did not come to be. Its kind of neat to work under such pressure, we came up with an idea and blocked it in about a span of 15 minutes. It reminded me of the improve games I used to play in theatre when I was in high school. I didn’t get to see how to set up the camera’s properly, but I imagine it was not that complicated, just setting both to the same exact settings, like the same white balance, fstop and so on. The only thing I’m still slightly confused about is how to figure out the exact space between the camera’s. I know they’re supposed to be in the same position as the human eyes, but scaled up because the lenses are larger than eyeballs. So I guess with a little algebra one could figure out the space between the two. I combined the left and right tapes in after effects, and although I remember learning how to do this, I’m not sure I can do it again with out instructions. I love learning stuff in after effects, its like this mystery program with so many possibilities and each time I get to do something new I feel like I’ve won some small battle with the imac, lol. It was cool to learn an actual practical use of the slate, I’ve only previously used it to match up sound, poorly at that. What I learned from this, as with anything that involves computers, technology, and the UNCW editing lab, one must plan to work longer than expected. I didn’t mind that much, I feel like I might be able to have fun in a career that involves after effects, as long as that’s not all that I have to do.