Tuesday, April 17, 2012

First Break

Amazing how things can change in one day! I received a call while I was in class from Jeff Allard who I had sent my resume to a week or so ago. Two years ago my old boss, Shawn, introduced me to his screenwriting friend, Edward, who I later Facebook friended. Shawn pointed out a few weeks back that Ed had posted on Facebook information about a film in which he was involved. I asked Ed for contact information so I could inquire more and seek a Production Assistant job and he was kind enough to give me Jeff's email.

Some time went by with no reply, and I then received an email from my school saying this film written by an Iowa native was seeking Production Assistants. It was the same film! But asked that I send my resume to someone else. So I did that, assuming I had sent my inquiry to the wrong person. Then today I get a call from Jeff asking if I was still interested. YES.

It creates a bit of a dilemma. I have to get to Tennessee by April 30th, so I'll miss my finals. That's a little over 10 days to finish 3 weeks worth of school work and attempt to do my finals early! Worth it. After all, I'll be working the job my degree is intended to help me get.

So this could mean big things. Big, relative to the nothing I've done thus far. The worst news is that I won't be able to finish 'Thunder Bay' this semester. I'll have to rework the screenplay and shoot it next year.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

One Month to Go

It has been a rough month, pending the end of the school year. Even though I started writing 'Thunder Bay' last summer I am only now getting stuff shot. I'm working as Special Effects Supervisor on a class project and grad film. I have to write a short screenplay for class. And none of this will really help me get a PA job!

So I am taking a break. Finally getting a new blog in. This summer I'll be moving back to Des Moines until fall. I'll likely get a job, maybe my old job at Happy Joe's, who knows. But I also plan to focus a lot on what matters--PA experience. Last summer I felt good getting the gig on Avi's film. I have to one up that this year. I applied for a project, low budget, but being shot by Hollywood professionals. Haven't heard back, no big deal. It inspired a new idea: Apply for local professional projects. So far I've sent my resume to one and received a hopeful response. This is good practice! Still, nothing exciting to report. I cannot let this blog die just because nothing is happening! I graduate soon, and after the initial OOOO I GRADUATED there will be a lot of nothing. Then hopefully something good! And I want this blog alive when that happens.

Here is a screenshot from the set of my film, Thunder Bay.


Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Too Much To Do

Currently I'm working on three projects. I'm the special effects supervisor on Avi's new film as well as in my alt forms class. Then I'm working on my film, which has fallen far behind schedule. It is a little discouraging. From now on, I am making short films only! I haven't even had time to blog. I haven't even had time to think of an interesting blog post to write. There just isn't time anymore, but I don't want this blog to die so I am checking in with a promise that soon I'll have something to say. I'm working on screenplays and such that I will be able to share.

For now, here is a special effects test that I worked on. It's just a test! Notice the artificial shadows. I'm getting better, eh?





This post is dedicated to the memory of my dog, Angel.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Pretentious Film Student

Memes are all the rage these days and I've thoroughly enjoyed wasting hours of my life reading them. As a kind of joke, I started a meme of my own based on the people I've had the pleasure of meeting at the University of Iowa. My friend, Brian, and I love pointing out who among our classmates are overly pretentiousso I used Brian's face as the template of a new meme called Pretentious Film Student.

Any film student will recognize these people, and if they don't then they probably are one. There are the kind who see themselves as creative geniuses capable of becoming big league film directors directly out of college; and the kind that hate the industry and think film theory is an important field of study and consider their incomprehensible "experimental" films to be their godly gift to humanity because their films are rich with "theory". If that run-on sentence doesn't have you convinced, then why not just check the meme out yourself?

Check out the Quick Meme Page to see the latest memes, make your own, and vote for the ones you like.

Also, there's a new Facebook Page so you can 'Like' the meme and have the latest show up directly on your feed.


Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Junior, Part II

So starts the new semester of my Junior year and after hours of work to add/drop classes until my schedule is perfect, I have finally gotten rid of the boring theory class which I would not have survived through in order to pick up two production classes, which the department frowns on almost as much as run-on sentences. I shall be taking an advanced short-form screenwriting class being taught by Facebook friend Chris R. and an "alternate forms" class, whatever that means, with Avi who is the grad student I'd previously worked for. Essentially, the class kills out two birds with one stone. We the students gain the necessary experience in an actual production team environment while Avi gets his latest film completed with free, mandatory labor. Every student will assume a role on the set of Avi's film and we will work together like a production company of sorts to see the project through. Very excited about this class.

The role I applied for and received is Special Effects Supervisor. Working with the "art department", I'll be in charge of designing the necessary special effects for the film and making sure every shot is set up for that effect. Most muzzle flashes and chroma keying, but I might be way over my head with some of the advanced motion tracking he's expecting. We'll see.

At any rate here is a thing I through together at 6am one depressing night so I could test out some special effects. Just for funnsies.