Happy Chinese New Year

I finally did it. I am not allowed to answer questions in my cinematography class anymore.

 

In all honesty, I am not trying to brag.  I am fortunate to have worked with a lot of the equipment on the indie features over the summer.  That combined with my eagerness and enthusiasm of being at the Hogwarts of film making have turned me into Hermione Granger.  I wasn't called out as an "Insufferable Know-It-All" but the above statement is true. I am still learning a lot and it's great! So today in Transfiguration (That means we are studying lighting which tranfigures the scene into something cinematic- I am not letting this metaphor die.) I got to finally understand F stops and how it effects exposure, the one thing that continued to escape my comprehension.  I am very excited.   

In Potions (Editing) my Boston Legal  cut came out pretty good but since it was a first draft they are having us all tweak it for next week. So that will be the one that I post on the private Vimeo page for you to see. It was a great experience. I had edited with a partner before coming here but it was always so frustrating for multiple reasons.  This time was different thought. Steve and I banged it out in just a couple of hours and we agreed on a lot. We seem to have the same vision for the pacing and timing of cuts.  It was also clear from the dailies that William Shatner is so "over the top" ridiculous that, as one fellow student put it, "it's a miracle he has a career". 

Steve and I are working on a project called Lotus.  It is very complex and will take a long time to explain so I won't get into details here but I want to say we are very excited.  Our TA in that class is very hard to impress but over dinner he told us that the idea was golden and not to waste it on a 546 project. 

As far as my P1 film goes I had an idea and pitched it my writing class yesterday.  I discovered that this idea needs some work.  The class was very helpful with the constructive criticism and I have gone back to the drawing board to iron out the details.  One thing is clear, I want to start off in black and white. I know the mood and look I am going for.  Yes, this probably is working backwards but I think I can formulate a story for the elements I have at hand.  I want my film to look something like this:

Oh and it happens to be Chinese New Year.  Like I said before we are a very eclectic class from all over the world so I am off to a party to enjoy some home cooked meal that I probably can't spell right.  Night!