Pushing My Luck

I'm hoping to shoot the final shots I need on Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning. I'll bring the hoodies to have Julia and Jimmy wear and then get a camera from the school, along with a digital camera to take photos with.

I decided that I would lay my old interview over photographs and stills from the footage I already shot and will shoot in the near future. This way I won't have to redo the interview and will have very little work left to do.

I still need to finish editing the footage I already shot, but I'm starting to think that I won't finish in time for the film festival. True, it's about three weeks away, but I'm nervous. I should probably edit tomorrow after my history class until I have to work, and make a list of the things I need to shoot still. That way I'll know for sure what's left to do.

For now, I might as well go out and buy my own Rubik's cube because I won't be able to borrow Jane's before Tuesday. Maybe I'll have the two actors pose in Delaware Park, where we're shooting, with books instead of a Rubik's cube and a book.

And don't get me started on the DVD stuff. I haven't even thought about compression and design or anything. I totally forgot how to do the compression of the movies, and the music I have I haven't even imported yet into Final Cut Pro. Sooo much work. Sooo little time.

And no credits, done, either.

Expectations and Ideas

As of this moment, I know that the following are requirements for this semester's production:

• Marketing plan
• DVD of the final video
• Professional DVD case with cover art, synopsis, movie stills
• Trailer
• Production stills
• Behind-the-scenes footage
• Interview with the director (me)
• Press release
• Budget plan
• Production Journal/Blog

I should provide a little more information about this project. We are supposed to work individually to produce a video between ten and fifteen minutes in length. Having graduated from the Buffalo Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts high school, I was used to working by myself on videos and films, doing all the writing, casting, directing, cinematography, editing, and producing by myself. Over the last two years of college, I got into the habit of working in small groups of four wherein each person was assigned a duty (editor, writer, director, producer).

Working in a group has given me great insight into the phenomenon known as "delegating responsibility". Now that we're back to doing independent work again, I feel more in the zone because I learned which students in my class were best at certain aspects of production that I am capable of doing but not the best at. Therefore I can ask specific students if they would be willing to take a certain position within my production group.

So far I've asked Joe W. to be my cinematographer and he agreed. John S. also agreed to work with me on writing and playing piano music, as we aren't allowed to use copyrighted music for this project. I may ask Gabe S., John D., or Travis C. to assist me with editing since all three know how to use Final Cut Pro more effectively that I do.

I admit that I'm a bit nervous about making a professional DVD and treating this project like I'm preparing to submit it into a film festival. You see, over the winter break, I wrote a nine-page screenplay titled "Puzzle to My Heart". It's the tale of a puzzle-obsessed girl who works in a library, the co-worker boy who admires her from afar, and the puzzle she met and then fell in love with. Not that interesting of a story, is it? So with all the expectations of this project, you can see why I'm hesitant to use that script. I have several other ideas, you see. One involves a twist of dreams and reality, another a fabulous female indie character, and the last telling the story of a mime's dreadful curse.

With so many ideas competing for one slot, it's tempting to go with the idea I already wrote to save myself work, but then I feel like I might miss out on an opportunity to create a truly great movie from one of the other ideas. Due Monday is a paragraph about my movie concept, including a logline (definition: a movie's description in thirty words or less). I can scrap the idea after I pitch it and choose another concept, but I can't pitch all my ideas and then work on the one that receives the most feedback.