My First Paid Film Job!

(Assuming you don’t count script-writing gigs I’ve have in the past!)

Last Saturday I had my first official paid film job, which was set up through the DFA. It wasn’t on a film set, but actually at a silent film screening downtown. The two films that were shown were the drama Battleship Potemkin and the comedy The General. I was very impressed by both, devastated and delighted, respectively:

                                                               Buster Keaton = Hilarious

                                                       Battleship Potemkin = My soul is crying

I forget who it was that said it, but in a documentary I saw, someone said if sound had come into movies just a few years later, there would have been far greater breakthroughs in cinematography. I’m inclined to agree, since relying only on image, these silent films have done amazing things.

Basically, my job consisted of shooting b-roll footage – outside the theater, people arriving, ushers taking tickets, popcorn popping, etc. – and then filming the Q&As after each film was shown. I was at the theater for about five hours but, given that I watched the movies, I really filmed for about two hours out of the five, making my three-figure salary not too shabby. I loved getting the freedom to wander around and shoot things that I found interesting, and to brainstorm what might be useful to the editors for the final promotional video.

But it wasn’t all popcorn and fun.

I couldn’t use a tripod, which meant using a shoulder mount to film. A shoulder mount is a device that balances the camera on your shoulder. There are handlebars in the front for you to keep it steady.

By the end of the day, my shoulder felt absolutely destroyed. It’s no mystery why you usually see big guys doing these kinds of jobs, instead of, well – me. Walking around with the camera and being able to shift it when I needed to wasn’t so bad – but filming the Q&As, both of which were almost 40 minutes, was excruciating. Sitting in one of the audience seats, toward the front, I had to remain perfectly still and balanced for the entire stretch of time. Additionally, things moved along quickly – Q&As would start before the lights even fully went up. There was no time to figure out a solution for balancing the camera on a chair or armrest before things were underway and the camera had to remain still for the rest of the shot.

If I were to have another job like this in the future, I’d insist on having something to balance the camera on besides myself. But, all in all, this was a great experience, and it felt good to be working and making contacts in the film world.

And, even though my camera apparently grazed right over him as I was taking shots of the crowd (he was in sunglasses and a hat, after all!), Matt Damon was there.

                                                                He was not posing like this.

Random Updates...

It’s been a few weeks, so I just wanted to catch you all up on a few random things that have been going on.

For starters, I got a new computer! Not just any computer – directly from the DFA and fully loaded with all the necessary filmmaker software. I got a good deal since it’s used, but it’s in great shape. Now I can do editing and make DVDs from home, instead of having to go back and forth from the school, which is a big time saver.

I will be at the school tomorrow, though, to pick up some film equipment – for my FIRST EVER PAID FILM JOB! Yep. New York’s QUAD Cinema is holding silent film screenings tonight and tomorrow, and I’m going to be filming the crowd and the Q&A sessions after tomorrow’s event. What with the recent success of The Artist, they felt it was time to have a film-school-esque discussion on silent films!

For more info:

http://www.tribecafilm.com/news-features/Quad_Classics_May_2012.html#.T77G8O1Qbk5

The other cameraman you’ll see there, if you go, is another member of my former DFA class. DFA truly doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to helping their students find work! This is actually the second job they’ve put me up for. The first I actually turned down since it was mostly a receptionist job, but it was with a DVD company and a legit, full-time, benefits-and-all position – not bad.

If you’re wondering how I plan to feed myself in the future (aside from obviously hoping to get more film and writing gigs) my craziest piece of news is that my mother and I pooled our funds this month and went in together to buy the pet care business (Tails Around Town) she’s been working for for the past three years. The original owner recently had twins and was looking to get out. Random though it may seem, I’m thrilled with the decision. This business basically equals a very flexible part-time job for me, which is perfect for balancing with my more creative endeavors. I’ll be doing mostly invoicing and other administrative tasks from NYC, as the business is actually run on Philadelphia’s Mainline – but I will occasionally be making the journey to do some pet visits and overnights myself.

For more info on us, you can visit the below website… we haven’t updated the owner info on there yet, but you get the idea.

http://www.mainlinedogwalking.com/

Definitely thinking of adding a pet video section to the website. :)

My final bit of random news is that last Sunday The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article I wrote about our wedding in India in their Travel Section! I made a little bit of money off of it, and it’s another publication to add to the resume, so I'm pretty happy.

I’ll be back soon with details on how tomorrow’s filming goes!

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