The Digital Film Academy

I mentioned it once before on this blog: the DFA (Digital Film Academy.) While searching for affordable film-making courses, I discovered they give one of the best for the money in New York City.

In particular, there’s a twelve-week course that covers all the basics of the craft and also grants the course-taker with one full year of access to editing, film, and sound equipment following ‘graduation.’ To top it off, there’s a career services center that will monitor students during this one year and hook them up with paying jobs. The price-tag on the 12-week, with one-year equipment access and career services help, is $3k, which, all things considered, I think is actually a pretty great deal (and a hell of a lot better than $100k!)

With my newfound freedom, I finally have the time and mental space to do something like this – and so I went for an admissions interview! The DFA was all a-buzz with excitement while I was there; one of their students had just won the New York International Film Festival this past weekend with the short he’d done during his stint in the12-week course. (Over the course of twelve weeks, all students complete a short film project (from writing through editing) which has been one of the big goals of my No MFA Project since the beginning.)

The next 12-week course starts on November 21^st, and I’m going to be a part of it. I registered at the end of my interview, after both meeting the very-impressive founder, Patrick (a true DIY-type who built his first theater with his own two hands back in the eighties, and whose theatre career eventually led him to film) and also viewing three surprisingly good student films.

As we watched the films and talked, Patrick made me think of things I hadn’t previously considered. For example: the importance of expression over dialogue, and how film-making isn’t just about mastering equipment, but also learning how to read faces and what the response in a human brain will be to certain facial expressions. I began to get the feeling that I’ll be learning about both film-making and people.

I QUIT!!!

There have been plenty of upheavals in my life lately. Surgery, getting married… and now the latest: I QUIT MY JOB!

This was not by any means an easy decision, especially in the current economy. But (aside from some unsettling things going on in the company) the knowledge that what I was doing had nothing to do with my hopes, goals, or passions started to become more and more difficult to ignore. My head would be filled with ideas, my heart would be filled with things I wanted to learn – but my days would be jammed with tedious tasks, all intended to make someone else rich while the years of my life just kept ticking by.

I had enough.

It certainly feels a little scary. My last day was November 1^st, and since then, I’ve definitely had a few moments of wondering whether or not it was the right choice. But, overwhelmingly, I feel that it was. And one clear thought keeps ringing through my mind: This will be the best thing that ever happened to me, because I will make it the best thing that ever happened to me.

Now I can see what happens to my MFA Project when I’m really able to give it all the time and effort it deserves. Which brings me to…

ONE MORE YEAR! I actually decided quite a while ago to keep the project rolling on for one more year. After all, MFA programs are typically 2 yrs, right? So why should mine be any different?

My New Baby

A quick post to proclaim my undying love for my new camera! (And, of course, for the husband who gave it to me.) Following our wonderful wedding, we left for our week-long honeymoon in Disney World (don’t knock it, we had an absolute blast). The first half of the week, I’ll confess, my new camera stayed in its packaging. We were too busy doing a delirious honeymoon circuit from beach to pool to spa to parks to room. Then, one morning, when my husband went off to work out (such discipline), I took the time to sit and study my new baby.

It. Is. Awesome. If anyone out there is considering buying a digital video camera, I highly recommend it. The high-def touch screen is incredible, with a picture that’s far sharper than I had dared to hope. The battery power is decent, although it doesn’t last for as many hours as they said on Amazon, which I’m going to look into further.

My mission now is to condense about two hours of honeymoon video down into four or five minutes of edited highlights, set to one of our favorite songs. It’s a great starter project, I think, for my amateur skills. I guess I’ll get a better sense of the sound and overall quality when I get to this step, and actually see what I’ve filmed up on a larger screen.

A lot of people have asked me if I’m sad now that the wedding is over. I thought I would be, but am pleasantly surprised to feel the exact opposite. I feel excited that, now the wedding came together and was an amazing day, I have the time and mental space to get re-focused on my goals and on shifting my life in a new direction. And to do it with a new last name. J

Cameras and Classes

Really, really exciting news! As you know, my wedding is coming up in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS (Sept. 10). I’m incredibly excited, especially now that I’m recovered from the surgery and have Hurricane Irene behind me.

As our nuptials grow ever closer, my fiancé and I have started to think about what we can give each other as wedding gifts; my absolutely incredible, generous, brilliant husband-to-be decided to give me a digital video camera, something I can use to learn about filmmaking.

We spent a few hours researching different cameras, trying to figure out what would be great for an amateur filmmaker, but still less expensive than the really high-quality cameras. We finally chose (drumroll):

The Canon VIXIA HF S30!

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-S30-Camcorder-SuperRange-Stabilizer/dp/B004HW7E0Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314632866&sr=8-1

The price was still a little high, but after cobbling together some coupons and promos (we are master couponers), we managed to get this camera for about half the price you’ll see on the above link, which is a great deal. Not only was this camera highly recommended on a few amateur filmmaker sites we found, but in comparing its reviews and description with other cameras in the same price-range, we saw that it can film way more hours of footage than others without having to cart around an extra battery (12), and it also makes incredible high-definition, quality video. The sound, a few people noted, may be problematic, but it also has a ‘mic’ jack for adding an external microphone which a reviewer said made the sound ‘amazing.’ The mic jack is a feature that less-expensive cameras are lacking.

All in all, I think it’s the best camera we could have found for the money, and I can’t wait to start using it. My first videos, of course, will be taken on our honeymoon. J

Now I just need to figure out what gift I could possibly get him that would be as amazing as this…

In other news, I’ve recently discovered the Digital Film Academy in NY:

http://www.digitalfilmacademy.com/

Still learning about this place, but they have a three-month digital film-making program that seems great, for about $3k. (Three three-hour classes a week.) This is a nice chunk of change (but obviously way better than a $100k mfa!) and seems to be a great value for the money compared to other workshops and programs I’ve seen. There’s a chance to view their students’ work on Sept. 21 for $5 – I plan to go and check out the quality.

And I'm Off...

…and running. I’ve officially started the new feature-length script, even as I’m wrapping up revisions on the first one. I’ve got nine pages down. Getting to hammer out my characters on the page, instead of in my mind, is helping the rest of the idea take shape.

Already, I’m catching myself leaning toward making this more of a scary script, even though the story as a whole is more drama than horror. Or maybe it’s just that, no matter what the serious subject matter, I tend to see the horror in it.

To be honest, I feel more thoroughly entertained when I watch horror than I typically do watching any other genre. There’s something about horror that I find makes it easier to be transported – maybe the way it keeps you totally on your toes; you’re more involved with a horror movie because, unlike lots of other movies, which you can watch passively, hoping for an effect, a horror movie quickens your pulse from the very beginning, because you just don’t know what it’s going to expose you to. People think it’s a cheaper form of entertainment, but I disagree – although, obviously, a lot of industry professionals cheapen it with lots of unnecessary boobs and gore, forgetting to create brilliant stories. Guess all genres do that, though.

It feels great to be off and running on a new script. Of course, I’m off in another way, too – still off from work, if you can believe it, and will be for another week! Here’s hoping to get lots of writing done.

Gift of Time

So I’ve now been with my parents in Pennsylvania for about three weeks, with two more to go, and yes, I did have surgery. I had originally hoped to be up and running in a mere two weeks, but then the surgery wound up being a bigger deal than we expected, and so on… It’s been a very surreal feeling, to not go into work, to just have, well… time. For the first time in years.

At least, that's how it feels this week. The first two weeks went by in a blur of pain and crazy mood swings, which I’ll continue to blame on the painkillers. This week, I’m off the painkillers, my thoughts are clearing up, I’m working a bit from home, and I’m feeling more and more like myself every day.

I know it’s off subject for the No MFA Project, but I never had a major surgery before, and I feel like I’ve learned so much from the experience about both the physical and psychological process of recovery. I learned quickly that small victories – the first time I was able to turn onto my side, the first time I could get my own juice, figuring out how to get out of bed without getting hurt, etc. – were really important. I encouraged myself by thinking that each day I’d tackle a new, small victory. I also learned the importance of constantly reminding myself to be tough, something I should probably do in my every day life, pain or no pain.

What’s on subject for the No MFA Project is that this experience has given me an idea for a new screenplay, one I very loosely outlined a couple days ago. (Gotta admit, this one has a bit of a horror flair, too – do you know how scary a surgery ward is at night? Screaming, rattling chains, the works – but it’s more of a drama than the first script, which I’ve been revising).

Also on subject is the fact I wrote a new short script two days ago. It was a piece I’d wanted to write for a long time: a script that is the exact length of a cross country race, and which, in the space of the race and very little dialogue, sheds light into the lives of the runners: their mindsets, their fears, and their (for better or worse) competitive spirits. (I ran cross country for a number of years, and writing this piece took me back to all those long-ago meets.)

When I first realized I’d have to take off so much more time than originally planned, I panicked. I actually burst into tears. But now, I’m taking the situation for what it can be at its best: a great opportunity to work on my writing.

You're Now a Broom

Writers have it tough. You can slave over a script, love it with every ethereal fiber of your soul – and then, as soon as it’s optioned and you’re thinking your life just got made, the studio or production company can take your precious baby and turn it into something unrecognizable.

Imagine a person you adore sitting across from you, you blink, and in their place is a broom. It’s a little like that.

Chris Keane, my former screenwriting teacher and present-day friend at Emerson College, knows all about this. Growing up, Chris had heard the story of his father’s crossing the Atlantic after World War 2. It meant something to him. It became a story that he felt destined to write.

On his father’s incredible journey home, there was a poker tournament. A ship full of men eager to leave war behind meant a ship full of men thinking about their future, and wanting it to be bright. The pot grew to over a million dollars (still a lot today, but imagine it in 1945), and the competition turned brutal. Think violence, cheating, and lots of sabotage.

Chris finally managed to capture the real-life story in a screenplay – both a fulfillment of a lifelong dream and an homage to his father – and to get the script optioned.

And then, the unthinkable.

The studio decided that, instead of a ship, they wanted a spaceship, and instead of poker… how about the ultimate X-Games? And World War 2 - forget it. Let's set this baby in the future!

You may have wondered from time to time how some movies get made, or how someone could have sold such a terrible script. Well, maybe the script wasn’t so terrible when they first sold it.

So what happened? Under option, Chris had no choice. He had to rewrite his script to meet the dubious new criteria. Every line he cut, every detail that had to be modified from gritty war ship to rocket in outer space, was painful. Luckily, the script was never filmed (no wonder), the option ran out, and now Chris has another chance to try and get his work to the big screen the way he intended it.

Do you know of any stories like this?