Universal Thumbs Down: DVD Seminar Review

If you’re like me and trying to get an education on your own, you might find yourself on Netflix, searching ‘filmmaking’ to see if there are any seminars or DVD courses to help you out. The #1 choice that will come up is John Russo’s Filmmaking Seminar.

I was really excited to get this DVD, since this is one of the guys who did Night of the Living Dead and the description claimed it would teach the viewer all about independent horror filmmaking (my favorite genre). Also, it lists this DVD as being from 2008. All I can figure is that this was the year when it was transferred onto a DVD, since the actual copyright you’ll see on the video is 1993, and it really looks like it was shot in the ‘80s. (Mullets ahoy.)

My advice to you is that this particular seminar is not worth the four and a half hours you’ll need to watch it. (Granted, I still have about an hour to go, but I predict the last hour won’t be much more thrilling than the first three and a half.)

Not that it was a complete waste of time. Hearing filmmakers talk about making their first films is inspiring, and I have picked up a few tips about film law and marketing – although nothing too distant from what I knew already. Here are my main grievances with this DVD:

1. Like I said, it’s from 1993 even if they say 2008, and it mainly focuses on making movies to sell directly into rental stores, which nowadays are pretty much obsolete.

2. For a video-turned-DVD that’s all about the art of filmmaking, I have to say: it looks HORRIBLE. Aside from looking as though it was filmed in your mom’s basement, with the door to the laundry room left ajar just behind the speakers (or a room full of random debris at best), I’m about 90% sure that the speakers were filmed on one day and that all the footage of an audience watching and reacting to them was filmed separately. The shots of the audience are never positioned so that you see the speakers and audience at the same time. The audience is also sitting in a white room with film equipment and harsh overhead lighting, while the speakers are in front of a dark brown wall with soft lighting.

3. OK, camera angles: if you’re going to have your speakers sit just in front of the open door to your mom’s laundry room, just angle the camera so you can’t see the sliver of the open room on the left-hand side of your frame.

4. For all the horny guys out there, the makeup and special effects speaker brings up a fake latex torso of a naked woman and keeps it on ‘stage’ as he speaks… to his credit, it’s super life-like… against his credit, you don’t really learn how to make anything like it for your own special effects purposes, and it really annoyed me, just because I thought it was so gimmicky and unnecessary to have a pair of boobs next to him on the table.

5. Finally, the word boring is taken to new heights. I know it’s just a filmed seminar/panel, but there’s gotta be some way to jazz it up. Even a laundry room fire could only help.

Anyway, I didn’t mean to rant about this so much, but it really is a disappointment. Does anyone out there know of a quality filmmaking course available on DVD? Particularly if it’s more modern and talks about digital filmmaking?

If not, maybe the time has come to make one!

Film Fests and Script Supervising

The last week has been a bit of a whirlwind, but well worth it.

For starters, I did get my submission off to the Williamsburg Film Festival in time… fingers crossed, they post their film lineup in August.

I’m going to keep on with submissions, and my next stop is the Stony Brook Film Festival… this one’s actually free to submit to, so there’s no reason not to give it a shot. It’s due by May 1^st, so I plan on shipping out my entry by tomorrow.

Submitting to Williamsburg was $30, which I’m not including in my tally of how much I’m spending vs. what I would have spent for an MFA since, well… that $100k MFA wouldn’t have covered the cost of submitting to film festivals anyway!

In further news, I wound up taking the DFA’s two-day Script Supervisor course as my free class for having won the Director’s Choice Award. All I can say is that script supervising might be the hardest job in the filmmaking industry (an industry in which each job I’m exposed to seems harder than the last!)

Basically, the script supervisor is responsible for continuity in the film. You’ve probably all seen movies where one moment something’s there and the next it’s not, and you realize it’s a mistake? For instance, we watched a clip from Devil Wears Prada, and noticed that during the scene where Andy has dinner with her father, he actually takes his glasses off three times – in a row. They keep magically appearing back on his face. A script supervisor should prevent this from happening.

Sounds simple, right? Wrong. A script supervisor needs to literally be able to watch a scene with any number of people and report on every detail of that scene, while doing five other things simultaneously and giving instructions to all other departments on how to keep things consistent in terms of lighting, clothing, makeup, you name it.

We were given an exercise in which three people were passing around drinks and cigarettes in a scene – and, as there’s only ever one script supervisor on a film, that means one pair of eyes needing to note exactly when each of those characters sips, puffs, passes, and exactly how they’re holding themselves while they do it. Meanwhile, the script supervisor’s also lining the script according to who the camera is facing, timing the scene, and filling out reports on each take.

If you’re not getting a sense of how impossible a job this is, I suggest trying it by having some friends read a one page scene, just once, while you do the above. See how much you catch. (Was her coffee cup facing forward or back? How far down was the cigarette burned? What word did he lift his arm on? Did she step into her jeans with her right foot or her left?)

I have a new-found respect for script supervisors, and for our amazing teacher, who is actually the head of the board of script supervisors here in NYC. I seemed to have a knack for it, so she said she’s keeping me in mind for the future… although, truthfully, it’s a career that might just be too difficult to pursue!

If you’ve ever considered it, though, know that script supervisors make good money – over $1,000 a day.

And one final note on this: even without any plans to become a script supervisor, this course is valuable. Particularly for directors and actors, who might not give any thought to how things need to be done the same way, take for take, so that it doesn’t wind up being a mess when edited together. Having taken this course, I have new skills to take to my next shoot.

Free Classes

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The Screening and Directors' Choice Award

I'm so excited you would think I won the Oscars.

Last night, I went to the Digital Film Academy's Short Film Screening at Anthology Film Archives. (By the way, AFA is a pretty cool place. I'm thinking of getting a membership, especially since it offers the opportunity to meet lots of first-time directors when they screen their features.) At any rate, I was incredibly nervous as the lights went down and the short films began to roll. Every time one ended, I had a dizzy sensation, knowing that mine might come up next.

But, as the night wore on, I began to calm down - and seriously enjoy - all the other short films! It was actually a wildly entertaining evening, and everyone who submitted a short film should be thrilled with what went up on the screen.

Toward the end of the screening, it finally happened - the little production company logo I had created for myself flashed onscreen, and I knew my movie was about to begin.

I can't even describe the rush I felt seeing it up on the big screen, or how I was still glowing this morning. Yes, seeing it large made me really see some things I want to fix: it's dark enough to warrant some color correction (which I'd hoped to avoid) and the volume needs to be adjusted a bit... but, as I listened to the audience react, laughing where I wanted them to laugh, gasping when I wanted them to gasp, and, finally, applauding at the end, I was so full of joy that I could have danced out of that theater.

And then, the icing on the cake - the director of the school notified me this afternoon that my short film had won the Directors' Choice Award for the screening. (At which point I did actually dance for joy, in my apartment. Again, you would have thought it was an Academy Award.)

Right now, I'm feeling incredibly encouraged, and fueled up for more filmmaking. I plan to spend next week at the DFA doing the color correction and volume-adjusting that last night showed me I needed. Then, I plan to submit the film to the Williamsburg Film Festival, which has a student film category, and the deadline is next Saturday, April 21st.

Just two days ago I talked about wanting to see the landmarks on my new path. This was a pretty awesome one!

My 30th Birthday and My First Screening

Yesterday, April 9^th, was my birthday! My 30^th birthday, and that’s a pretty big one. As I do every year, I took a large chunk of the day to write in my journal, reflect on what’s happened in the past year, and think about what I’d like to have happen in the next.

All in all, 29 was a majorly pivotal year for me. Aside from the obvious – I got married – my life also drastically changed when I quit my job, finally leaving behind a situation that had made me so unhappy to pursue things I’m passionate about. This was actually the defining move of the year, as it has been the decision that has really changed everything. (With all due respect to my husband, I had felt as if we'd been married in our hearts for a long while.) 

While 29, I also finished a full-length screenplay, a few short screenplays, a novella, and a short film. And, of course, I learned all about making films, which had been a life-long dream of mine.

I feel like this was really the year when I got onto the right path. Now, I want 30 to be all about starting to see the landmarks on that path.

One such landmark is my first screening, which is happening tomorrow night at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City (32 Second Avenue, at 2^nd Street). The event goes from 6-8pm, and showcases a number of shorts, including mine. It will be my first chance to really see how people react to my movie, and I’m excited and nervous. 

I’ve also just about made myself crazy these past few weeks, running back over to the DFA to try and tweak the film again… and again… and again every time I noticed something wrong. (FYI, as a film editor, every time you watch the film, you'll find something wrong.) I almost completely lost it when I realized just ONE word (one!) was out of synch with the movement of my actress's mouth, and that I had to make another journey to fix it and burn DVDs all over again... but I'm happy to report she's now synched, and that I've decided to relax and accept that, for now, the film is what it is!

If you get the chance, I would love to see you at the Anthology Film Archives tomorrow night! (Tickets just $5.) And be sure to vote for Chance as your favorite film of the night!

www.anthologyfilmarchives.org

Done and Done!

Did you notice? The change made to my project tracker, over on the right-hand side?

I’ve had to switch from calling it  “Writing Project Tracker” to just “Project Tracker,” and yeah… add a section for completed films.

Last week was a huge deal for me. I finished the novella on Thursday, which wound up being a very emotional event. The ending turned out quite different than I’d originally planned and definitely more upbeat. It’s funny, since I’m generally a very upbeat person, that my writing is usually pretty dark. This novella was no exception – but it uncharacteristically took a turn for the best, right at the end.*

Then, on Friday, after eight straight hours in the editing lab and with only fifteen minutes to go until the DFA closed for the night, I finished my short film. (Let me just note that editing is a VERY addictive process – you could literally just go forever and ever if you wanted to.)

Now, I realize that I’m living in an age where a lot of people, and a lot of kids younger than I am, know how to create short films. It’s the era of YouTube, when anyone can post a video. But, in my case, despite being born into a technology-prone generation, all this stuff has always seemed like Greek to me. Last Friday, I achieved something I wanted to achieve since I was little, something I put off for years and years, always finding excuses not to try.

And now it’s done. I made a film, and I know all I need to know about making another. And I will make another.

I. Am. Elated.

Is it perfect? No. Will I probably make some changes before it’s screened? Probably. But it’s a tangible, finished product that taught me everything I set out to learn about film-making… and made me interested in learning even more.

*As far as writing goes, of course, I’m now eager to start a new project. However, I received some words of wisdom from my husband this past weekend: “perfect the one you have before starting something new,” and this is advice I plan on taking. Starting tomorrow, after this mini, three-day breather from projects, I’ll be diving into revisions – with an aim to get the novella submitted to prospective agents by June.

Almost There!

So, I am into the home stretch with film class! Final, edited short films are due this Friday.

It’s been thrilling to watch the film take shape, and has made me look forward to the next short I will do: mainly because, having filmed in Grand Central Station, I had very little control over things like light (we weren’t allowed to set up lights) and sound (acoustics varied greatly depending on how the mike was pointed, making sound editing pretty choppy).

           

I have really enjoyed the editing process, though. Yes, it is incredibly time consuming: I averaged about an hour per minute of edited film just to get a rough cut, then who knows how long I spent scrubbing the footage even further. Now that I’m involved in editing, I’m noticing continuity mistakes even in my favorite movies that I probably never would have noticed otherwise. Overall, I think my second short will be much better than my first, not just because I’ll have more control, but because I’ll better know what kind of coverage I need to get in each shot to help make editing an easier process.

One thing I find funny is that, at first, I actually ‘over-edited’ – there were more cuts back and forth between my actors than there needed to be, sometimes cutting right over an emotional moment when I just needed to rest for a beat and let things sink in. I find this funny because I think I’m a bit like that in life – rushing to fill a pause or a silence when, really, it’s ok to have them – and that it translated into my film editing. Now I’ve gone back and removed some of these cuts, and overall, am pretty well pleased with the editing. What remains is adding music, recording and inserting a short voice-over, and continuing to do what I can do to smooth out the light and sound issues.

Almost there!

In writing news, I am almost finished writing the first draft of a novella I started on February 15^th. (Well, if I can still call it a novella now that it’s about a hundred pages and counting.) I have two ‘scenes’ left to write and expect to be done by either tomorrow or the day after, depending on how I balance it with my time in the film lab. This novella, for me, marks a return to prose writing after recently focusing more on scripts. It has actually been a very soothing and encouraging process, and hopefully is the beginning of balancing script writing and prose writing on a regular basis.