Tales From The Inside

Chapter Eight: Please Tell Me I Didn't Peak as a Sophomore in College!

If you could say that I've ever had "my year" in editing, it would definitley be my sophomore year in college. Freshman year was all about learning who you'd like to work with, who sleeps on sets and who would bust their ass to meet a deadline. It was all about learning to balance a social life with the hard work that comes along with making a movie. Well over the summer I landed an internship at a local news station. This will later come into play, but for now I'll just say that being part of live evening news was one of the most exhilarating things ever! I was seriously drawn to the concept of live television, the excitement during the broadcast, and when it was over, it was over. No first cuts, second cuts, fine cuts, final cuts, etc etc etc. Because it was a smaller station, I got a lot of responsibility pretty quickly. I was working the cameras during the broadcast, being directed on how to frame the reporters by a little headpiece I was wearing, and sometimes I'd even get to do the chyron, which is a fancy way to say, type up people's names and when they were on screen, put their name up. So I really liked live television but brushed it aside, and focused on the fact that I was in film school.

So back at school after the summer, there was a busy year in front of me. Sophomore year was when it started to get nitty gritty. This year was really hard. Our class had gotten really close freshman year. We all clicked. It was unusal, but almost all of us got along. And then came the pressure. Immediately sophomore year, we all had to announce our intended disciplines. It was like the Civil War. Brother against brother, sister against sister. Everyone's heads were filled with predictions of who would get what, who would have to leave, and sometimes, who was a shoe-in. Of course, the most intense competition was in the directing discipline, so needless to say, I was relieved about that. I've already discussed how much I hate competition. But the editing discipline was also very competitive. I think there was about 12 first choices, but nearly everyone had chosen editing as a second choice. It was scary, but for the first time in a long time, I almost felt confident in what I was doing.

This chapter is titled, "Please Tell Me I Didn't Peak as a Sophomore" for good reason. I actually need someone assure me I didn't peak as a sophomore! Sophomore year, I got really lucky. Well, it started out a little rough, the movie I "wrote and directed" was the Aimee Mann featured cafe heartbeat piece that I mentioned earlier. Oh, that one wasn't so great. The movie I edited fall term was banned from the screening due to not-paperwork-approved graphic titles done by a graphic extroadaire in our class. Yeah. But then winter term came around. We had been put into groups earlier in the year to do productions with in the fall and winter terms. I loved the group I had been put into. There was one editor, (me), one cinematographer, (a cameraman extroadiare), and then 3 director wannabes. The competition there, was enough entertainment for me. All three were very good directors, but sometimes they'd get into little arguements that had me reaching for the popcorn. Nonetheless, the point of all this is that I was the only editor. I think this was fantastic for me because not only did I get to edit the documentary, (which I'll explain in a second), I got to edit nearly everything we did as a group. This gave me the opportunity to work with three very promising, (aka shoe-ins to the directing department), directors. Well, all the groups had to do a documentary winter term. It was going to be the first thing we shot on film, it was going to be without sync sound, and our group's was going to be cut by me. It was called "Strike", and was appropriatelty a simple piece that followed the bowling ball and pins through a "stirke". Well the shoot went great, but we opted to use sound effects and music to fill the sound track. I think I recorded a little bit of stuff, (because being the editor of the group also meant I was the sound mixer/boom op of the group), but mainly it was going to have to be custom recorded. I tried with sound effects, but nothing really did justice to the piece. So I went out, humorously I might add, in this bowling alley, mixing the levels, holding the boom mic, and trying to bowl at the same time. I must have looked pathetic because someone that worked there came over to help me by rolling a few balls. I also got to go "behind the scenes" and record all these little gadgets and gears. It was pretty awesome actually.

When I went back and listened, a lot of the machanical sounds were really flat and uninteresting, so I took a couple of sounds that I had picked up from the machine and looped it as a gear head moving up and down. For the thing that set the pins down, the sound was excellent, but when it came back up, nothing, so I reversed it. I went through the entire 5 minute documentary doing this to every second of the film, putting in sounds for every pin, every footstep, and most importantly, every single machanical operation that we filmed. Well, needless to say, it ended up sounding great. And got me a lot of attention. It was the only documentary where sound played such a big role. And it was all custom designed. When I talked to one of the sound instructors on how I did it, he was just grinning so proudly and my own pride began to grow. I got so many complements on that movie, and it caused people to start rumblings of me being a "shoe-in"! I had never been a shoe-in for anything! And people I didn't know knew my name. That was one of the most unexpected things. People would come up to me and be like, "You're Betsy, right?" Well, that's when my confidence began to grow. To this day, that little documentary is one of my favorite things I've ever done. If it weren't for the unlicsenced DJ Shadow song we used, I'd have that puppy in festivals or something. I love it. (Obviously!)

Spring term. Coming off of the high that I had gotten from "Strike", I found that I was getting lots of requests to edit people's movies. I ended up going with a comedy piece that was going to be very dependent the editing. Lots of conversations, not a lot of action, most of the comedy being played on reactions, I was in! I knew the director was good, his reputation was floating around as well, and he was a friend of mine. I went into the project with a little pressure of expectations, but I faced it head on, using the confidence I had gotten over the months before. We spent a lot of discussing the editing in pre-production, and it was the first time I really felt like I was truely part of the development and pre-production process as an editor. When we finally got to the editing room, all of our preparation started to pay off. We had planned things like transitions, making my job in the editing room fairly easy. Interesting transitions, like movement on side A of a cut matches movement on side B, are small little touches that can really help. On top of this, there was also a three minute (or so) arguement scene between eight people. Each and every character was covered. Needless to say, with all the snappy dialogue, hilarious reactions, and the subtle rising tension throughtout the scene, it was a tough scene to cut. It was actually the first scene I cut on the movie. (That's what I try to do: approach what I believe is going to be the hardest scene to cut and cut that first. It helps me because I'm starting fresh on the piece and am not completely tired of the characters, can't recite all the lines, and don't want to "never see this movie again" yet. Perspective I guess.) Well, that scene went really good. I set a pace and kept reactions plentiful. Reactions make or break comedy and it ended up really working.

Once again, that dialogue scene got me attention and the "shoe-in" remarks came in full force. I couldn't stop grinning. I had actually found something that I was good at. After trying to play at least 8 musical instruments, attempting numerous sports, and even trying my hand at painting, I had found something that not only I enjoyed, but I was actually being recognized for my work.

But all my hard work came at a price. Second year is the most trying year for the students. We had so much going on, tons to juggle, and with the added pressure of trying to prove yourself to the faculty of your chosen discipline, it wasn't long before I had found myself at a breaking point. We lost one of out classmates that year. The emotional blow for all of us was hard. Ten of us, or so, made the car trip to Ohio to attend her services. There, we were greeted with more students, and even a few faculty members. It was a hard time. Our class seemed to unite in a completely new way, unfortunately, there's really nothing like a tragedy to bond people. A few weeks later, my grandmother, who I was very close to, also passed away. With the stress and the emotional turmoil, I nearly threw in the towel.

I remember one night just being exhausted and talking with someone from home, (and out of the little bubble that was film school), and just being completely tired and exhausted, wanting to quit and go home. Wanting to do something else, something that would allow me to have some free time, something that would allow me to sleep. Since I was usually working on "Aftermath...", (aka piece with transitions and conversation), until very early in the morning, I had picked up a bad habit. On the drive home, so I didn't fall asleep at the wheel (which would be bad), and to (incorectly) cope with all the stress, I had begun smoking. It started out, one or two on the drive home, but I quickly found some sort of solace in smoking, and picked up the habit. You know, I've made some mistakes in my life, but starting smoking was one of the biggest.

I've always believed life works on this scale. No matter how great you are feeling about one thing, there is something else to balance it out. While I was flying high with my new-found reputation, I was always exhausted and stressed, me and one of my best friends had a falling out of epic proportions, (that still, to this day, has yet to really be mended), and, to be quite frank, people just kept on dying.

I dealt. Once the movie was done, I collasped in exhaustion, but for all my hard work, had this wonderful movie to show. And I wanted to do it all, (well almost all), over again. That's the cycle, you know? A movie will push you to your breaking point, but you get it done, and it seems all worth it. I believe it's called passion. Well, I was ready to go again, which was a good thing as it turned out. Brett, one of the directors in my documentary group, was doing a feature length movie over the summer. He asked me to edit it. Not only was I completely thrilled to take part in an extracurricular movie, he had asked me, me(!), to edit it. I told him yes, and agreed also to do sound on the movie that would film around Winston-Salem, and Florida. To have a feature under my belt at twenty was an amazing opportunity.

But before the summer, I had one more hurdle to jump, the infamous Sophomore Slaughter. Technically, I wasn't coming back next year yet. And as confident as I felt about my reputation with the faculty, there was no way to really know what would happen in those portfolio reviews. Again, the nervousness rose.

Labels: crewing, film school, getting accepted, passion, success

posted by ms bct @ 9:58 AM 0 comments

Chapter Four: Putting It Into Words

College was a given for me. I had never even considered not attending. Blame my parents, but it was so deeply ingrained in me, I never really gave myself any other choice. I lived in a small town, riddled with stories of people who never made it out. I knew I had to leave, and I wasn't ready to go out on my own just yet. I utilized my guidance counselor to find what schools around North Carolina had majors in Film. I look back and wonder now why I chose to limit myself to NC. There are so many great schools out there, but for some reason I couldn't come to terms with leaving my home state. I was very prone to becoming homesick, and to my own discredit, really couldn't see beyond the borders. At that time, I knew that Los Angeles was in my future, but it seemed like a far-off place I would go after college. Me looking into the future resembled someone looking into another life really. But in NC, I got lucky.

I applied to four NC schools. Some with film studies programs, and one, an arts conservatory with a major in filmmaking called, North Carolina School of the Arts. I knew of this school for various reasons. My cousin had gone for dance, and I had spent a summer there doing one of their Summer Session programs. It was this school that would allow you to actually learn the technical aspects of filmmaking and give you a chance to actually make movies. It seemed like the place for me if I decided to go the filmmaking route. But I still wasn't sure. I secretly hoped that maybe my choices would be narrowed down by process of elimination.

I applied and waited. And waited. It was a stressful time as my friends started to be accepted to their schools of choice. And as fate would have it, my answers started rolling in as well. Letters of acceptance from all schools except NCSA. Cruel fate. I had almost completely lost hope, telling myself that it was for the best. And then I get a letter informing me of an interview at NCSA. An interview. I was a mess of nerves. How on earth could someone who knew next to nothing about movies convince a panel of professors that I belonged at their school. I pictured myself in a conference room of glaring men, (all closely resembling the man from my job shadow experience), rolling their eyes at my "ambition" and lack of knowledge of the field. How could I describe my excitement and feelings without sounding like a bumbling fool? And I didn't have dyed hair or tattoos or anything else that I have convinced myself was a necessity of someone who went to an art school. Today I find that irrational and very narrow minded, but to me then, it was legitimate fear I had. My lack of body art would make me stand out like a sore thumb, just screaming, "I don't belong here!"

The date rolled around and I found myself in the car with my mother driving to Winston-Salem, NC. I think I fidgeted the entire way, reading over copies of my application and essays I had sent in months earlier. Coming up with answers to questions that I could potentially be asked like, "Do you want to devote your life to this? How do you know?" or "What makes you stand out as an applicant to film school? What have you done to prepare for entering this world?" I tortured myself for four hours, too nervous to listen to music and too unsure of myself to ever be satisfied with my simulated answers.

But time doesn't stop for preparation. At a certain point, you are either ready or you're not. The fact that in my mind, so much was riding on this interview, that whether or not I was accepted to this school was going to determine my future, made things ten times harder for myself. It was that frame of mind made it impossible for me to ever feel prepared. It was a bed that I had made for myself. One that I was forced to lie in.

It is something that now I look back on and nearly laugh at my former self. I had basically been putting my entire future into one acceptance or denial. Theoretically, I was going to let one misstep discourage me from going after something that I really wanted. It's something I later learned was fatal in this industry, or any industry for that matter. You are going to fail from time to time. And you can't let failure discourage you. You use that experience to learn and grow and develop.

In the interview, I stuttered and was nervous and am pretty sure I called the man "ma'am". But they were very nice, and didn't seem completely astounded when I didn't start to recite all of Spielberg's films, alphabetically and by year. (Actually they seemed relieved.) I told them about my job shadow and watching film crews downtown. I think I even said something cheesy like, "I belong here". Of course the, "even though I don't have dyed hair or tattoos," was implied.

Nonetheless, I cried after the interview. I cried because of the relief I felt that it was over, and I cried because as nice as they were, I thought I had blew it in all my stuttering and movie unbuffness. I think I probably cried because I thought that I was never going to be a part of "it". That the dream was just that: a dream.

After all this talk of failure and discouragement, I think its important to note that I was later accepted. I can not express my relief enough. I had been in such a state of anxiety that I sincerely believe that if I had not been accepted, I would have thrown all my determination and hopes for the future away. Today, I probably would be a teacher or worse, an architect working at my dad's firm.

Now this is the part of the story where I made a choice that would forever change my life. As I was accepted, after all that, I'm sure you think it is clear what my choice would be. But it wasn't. I was beyond relieved that it was an option, and as strongly as I was leaning in that direction, I still needed that assurance that this is what I really wanted to do. Going to this college meant it was going to be real. I wouldn't be able to switch majors, I would graduate with an inflexible degree in filmmaking. I think this insecurity probably came from the adults around me being mystified that an eighteen year old already knew what they wanted to do for a living. None of my friends knew for sure. How could I?

Eventually, I made my decision. I got a hold of myself and remembered how I felt that day that I was "on the inside" at my job shadow. I realized that as old as I felt, at eighteen I was still very young and this opportunity probably wouldn't come around again. I gathered all my courage and self-esteem, and checked the box that said "Yes, I will be attending NCSA".

As I hope that this will one day be able to help someone who wants to get into film, I feel like it is important for me to point out once again that film school is not required. For me, I thought it was my ticket in. While it was one of the single greatest experiences of my life, when it comes down to it, film school is not a ticket in. It can certainly help, as I will later get into, but by no means is it the definitive way to get to the other side of those barriers.

Labels: film school, getting accepted, interview

posted by ms bct @ 7:21 PM 0 comments