Tales From The Inside

Chapter Nine: Full Speed Ahead

There's so much to cover, I really don't want, (or mean), to spend so much time on my college years. The problem is, this is where so much happened for me. I've already skipped a few things, one regretably so. Now I will back track for a small second to discuss.

I was a grip on a professional shoot of a short film called "Two Soldiers". Small as the movie was, it was a new and real experience. (And it later went on to win an Academy Award!) I learned three things:

1. How film shoots in 'the real world' differed from film school movies...

2. How similar film shoots in 'the real world' and film school movies are...

3. and I hated being on set.

The third, I assume, is the most important. Despite the fact that all the movies I had a hand in were pretty small, I felt like I had a pretty good idea of what being on a crew meant. The negative being: long hours, tons of hurry up and wait, and no immediate gratification. The positive: being in the middle of the process is pretty exciting, bonding with the cast and crew, and being able to be outside; traveling to various, sometimes new and exciting, locations.

The positives are great. They are. But for me, the enjoyment of the actual work just wasn't there. I had decided to make a living in this field, or at least try, so I needed to earn it.

So, catching up to the previous post, I was going to try for the editing disipline. I'm not deluted...and I'll tell you the same thing I told my friends who were stressed and anxious about the outcome of Sophomore Slaughter. It does not say "Editing and Sound', "Directing", etc on our degrees. In fact, it says Bachelor of Fine Arts. Only once does it even mention "filmmaking" on the piece of paper, and that is under our Dean's signature: "School of Filmmaking Dean". While Sophomore Slaughter did determine how we would spend the next two years, beyond that, it was up to us. The three most important things you get from film school does not come from what major you are in. Those three things? Your first success, your first failure, and contacts!

Having said that, both to you and them, I was beyond anxious. I just had to get into the Editing discipline! If I could only get myself to listen to my own advice.

Well, as the envelopes started to be put into boxes, faces were solemn, respectful. Well for the most part anyway.

The time came to open my envelope. I waited. Maybe because I knew what was in the envelope. Maybe I knew; I didn't need to look. Or maybe it was because the second I unfolded that flap, I would know. Maybe I did it because I'm sort of a tame masochist. But I think I knew. For all that I've been talking about my self-confidence problems, I was pretty sure that I was in. A year of people telling you that you were "the best editor in the class" will really help. You begin to believe it. And maybe it was true, maybe it wasn't, but it made me more self-assured. On the outside, I would wave off the remarks. Inside, a small bubble of less-than-humble thoughts were a brewing.

The anti-climatic part of this is: I got in. I was accepted into the editing discipline. I opened the envelope and it was there, a letter inviting me into the future, if you will. I was doing something right. And things were going great.

I went into one of my editing professors office to thank him, and we ended up having an interesting discussion. The highlight? He told me that within ten years, I would win an Academy Award. My mom had a field day with that one. I think she sent out cards to all of our relatives boasting, "My daughter is going to win an Academy Award in ten years! P.S. She's taking me so don't even ask!"

This blog would be really boring if it was all smooth sailing. I assure you, it's not. But at this moment, I was on top of the world. I had been invited to being one of ten editors in our school, then the Academy Award comment, and I was about to spend the summer making my first feature length movie. Damn. Times were good!

Well, happy-happy ship coasts on. For the summer at least. We made this movie with a crew of four to five people. Doing it guerilla style, very few lights, flying by the seat of our pants. I lived out of my car. We spent two weeks in Florida. We worked six day weeks, shooting around 12 hours a day. As the sound team, I was both the mixer and boom operator. I was carrying around two HUGE tackle boxes filled with equipment and cables and batteries. The cord for the microphone weighed like twenty pounds, and as I had to move with the actors, it rested over my shoulder in the 90 degree heat. I was holding the boom over my head for the majority of the day. Exhausting. I remember being tired, I remember being hot, sore, and sometimes, in pain. But I don't remember being miserable. It was the most fun. I have never felt closer to a group of people. We saw it all. In Florida, we were all living together and stealing each other's sheets and griping about who drank the last of the milk. But we were all having a blast. It was "Tell Everyone" for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week all summer. On our day off, we'd talk about the next week. We'd sit around and drink beer and eat yummy food and talk about life and school and the future and the movie. We knew it wasn't going to be a phenomenon, but dammit, it was going to be good. We all put everything we had into making it the best we could. And we were doing it. That's what kept spirits up. We knew we weren't going to make any money, but we were putting ourselves in the game. At twenty, we were making a feature length movie. Definitely not unheard of, by any means, but to us, to me, it was something to be very proud of.

It ended and I jumped in the editing process with the same gusto. For all the things you can say about post-production, talking about the actual cut and splice process is rather boring. So I'll spare you the details of cutting, but Brett, (the director and producer and actor and everything else), and I, found a great rhythm and worked so well together. I knew what he was thinking before he told me. He knew what I was thinking before I told him. It was the smoothest edit I've ever been a part of. It went too well. When it was all over, I was left feeling like there wasn't anything I couldn't do.

That's how I remember my summer after Sophomore year.

Here's a little treat I cut together after the editing was all done. The most narcissistic thing I've ever done. We shot on video so we ran the camera when we were getting room tone or wild sound/lines. Needless to say, I made a lot of the shots so I could easily recognize where the sound was. Hence, I bring forth this video. It probably represents my, (albeit short-lived), "I love this and I'm awesome" attitude best. Enjoy...well...me.

Labels: film school, Final Cut Pro, finding post, first feature, independent movie

posted by ms bct @ 11:27 PM