We recently finished shooting (filming -- I'll use "shooting" throughout this piece, so don't think I'm talking about using firearms) the short version of our motion picture. This short film is being made to make it easier for us to obtain monetary investments -- we show investors that we are capable of producing a quality product and they show faith by investing in the feature-length film. Another possible reward for making this short film is what I'll call "hype" -- we may market the film at film festivals, at which we could possibly win awards or at least become known in the industry; we will screen the short version multiple times in Nashville; and we will produce a limited number of DVDs to donate to friends and family, who will hopefully show the "short" to additional friends and family, creating a sort of Bernoulli trialish distribution/viewership chart.
I will tell you three things about making this short film:
1) It is hard, long work
2) Acting is fun
3) Parts of the process can be frustrating (aside from/on top of being hard work)
Hard, Long Work
We spent three days shooting this 15ish-minute short film. The first day, we worked from about 7am-midnight. The second day, we went from about 4pm-11pm. The third session, we toiled from 3pm-11pm. In sum, we worked 32 hours to shoot footage for what will be a 15ish-minute short film -- a little over two hours per minute yielded.
Our director and one of his editor pals have begun editing the film, which is expected to take about three weeks to accomplish (working about two days per week, since our guy does not own the editing equipment).
To give a detailed description of the non-acting-or-directing-related work that goes on at a set would take pages and pages of tedious prose, to which I am not about to subject you. I'll simply state that it is hard work -- setting up, tearing down, moving and setting up again, tearing down again, doing the click-board thing ("Scene 1a, take two" smack), holding the boomed microphone at weird angles from difficult positions so that we can hear the actors at all times, holding special handleless lights to provide "fill" light, figuring out how to get the correct lighting itself -- is tough labor. I was sore and tired after each session.
Acting Is Fun
Without getting into the script too much, I'll say that I had a blast acting out my part. I play a sarcastic jerk of a boss. My character gives an underling coworker a hard time for no good reason.
The thing I like most about acting is the opportunity to alter my voice to fit both my character and his mood. In my scene I attempted to portray mood-traits such as humor, sarcasm, anger, irritation/irritability and understanding (the last, briefly).
It was the third or fourth shot, of course, before I remembered to speak all of my lines into (or near enough to, in the direction of...) the boom microphone.
Frustrating
Setting up and tearing down a set is tough work, but the toughness of that is understandable. What was most frustrating (and oddly funny) about acting/shooting the film was having to deal with variables outside of our immediate environment.
For instance, the crickets and/or cicadas (whatever they were) were very loud at certain times during one of our shoots. We continued anyway, hoping that the microphone would adequately pick up dialogue and that we'd be able to edit out the background noise later. So far, there have been no complaints.
Secondly, there were several shots (takes) of my scene that were interrupted by Saturday-night patrons on Broadway. I'd be standing not two feet from my acting counterpart when, all of a sudden, someone would look into the window and manage to get his or her face into the shot, right between us. One guy knocked on the window and waved at us. Talk about weird -- we're staring back at the window laughing and muttering "Uh -- thanks a lot" at the same time.
This is not a term paper, so I'll leave without a more formal conclusion -- I'm not going to tell you what I told you, in other words. I'll end by saying that the whole film/shooting/short experience has been fun, and that we should have those DVDs ready in a few weeks.
Until then, au revoir.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Independence Day
Happy 4th of July to everyone!
To mark the occasion, I figured I'd reach back in time to one of the most important dates in the history of the United States.
Date: July 4, 1863
Events: Union wins at Vicksburg and Gettysburg
Stars: General Meade (Gettysburg), General Grant (Vicksburg), Abraham Lincoln.
Things had been going poorly for the Union (USA) in the US Civil War. But on July 4, 1863, Union forces effectively kicked the Confederate forces out of the US at Gettysburg, split the Confederacy in half (Vicksburg) by taking control of the Mississippi River, and took a major morale boost from the two huge victories.
On November 19, 1863 a national cemetery was dedicated at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg. At this dedication, President Abraham Lincoln -- probably our greatest President -- gave his famous Gettysburg Address:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Lincoln spoke of one of the two great battles that ended on the same day -- results that, when taken together, may have saved the Union. Who knows what the USA, or the world, would have been like if not for the results of that great day 144 years ago?
To mark the occasion, I figured I'd reach back in time to one of the most important dates in the history of the United States.
Date: July 4, 1863
Events: Union wins at Vicksburg and Gettysburg
Stars: General Meade (Gettysburg), General Grant (Vicksburg), Abraham Lincoln.
Things had been going poorly for the Union (USA) in the US Civil War. But on July 4, 1863, Union forces effectively kicked the Confederate forces out of the US at Gettysburg, split the Confederacy in half (Vicksburg) by taking control of the Mississippi River, and took a major morale boost from the two huge victories.
On November 19, 1863 a national cemetery was dedicated at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg. At this dedication, President Abraham Lincoln -- probably our greatest President -- gave his famous Gettysburg Address:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Lincoln spoke of one of the two great battles that ended on the same day -- results that, when taken together, may have saved the Union. Who knows what the USA, or the world, would have been like if not for the results of that great day 144 years ago?
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