My Final Journal Entry - A Reflection of the Semester

Keith,

Now that the semester is over, and we have seen the production come full circle, from inception to screening, I've learned a lot. After we were set in our production company of 10 enthusiastic story tellers I didn't know how well it was going to work out. I have always been used to working in smaller groups, this was the first time I've working on a class production with more than four people. I knew I was going to work well with James, Alec, and Nick because I have worked with them in the past. I was excited to get to know all the new faces and grow as a team. As we continued working my confidence in us greatly grew and after the first few weeks together, I could tell we were going to end up as a close group.

When we were pitching ideas around, I was pretty set on convincing the class to like my baseball story. I knew creating a drama would be a lot easier to pull off; I was hesitant about comedy. Our pre-production phase lasted quite long, and we ran into a bunch of bumps, as some of us butted heads with the script. I think it's safe to say we were getting a bit frustrated, but in the end everything worked out. No feelings were hurt as we moved on and planned for production.

During our casting session we ended up getting very lucky, everyone who auditioned was extremely talented. Although we did not have a lot of people come to audition, the people who did fit the parts perfectly. I was impressed with their acting abilities and was happy that they wanted to be apart of our production.

Overall, production went smoothly, and I feel that everyone in our class got a chance to do what they wanted. I definitely had a fun time directing, I felt that I directed the interview scenes well and I got the actors to really get into the scenes. It is tough for actors to sit in front of a green screen and talk into the camera while reciting a monologue, however I felt that they did great. Unfortunately I was not able to make it to the shoots over easter break because I was at home with my family celebrating the holiday. I appreciate how the class was able to get together and get things done over that weekend with limited crew; everything they shot looked great and production was finally wrapped!

Post production time! Most of my time spent for this project was in post production. Editing with James was very stressful and time consuming, especially with all our finals going on. We ran into a lot of problems while editing which made it even more tricky to complete. I took on the writers room scene, and the ending scene. Both of which were very long, there was a lot of footage. The hardest part was piecing together the audio and video together. During the writers room scene the slate was usually only halfway in frame, or was completely blurry, and there was little or no camera audio. When there was camera audio, the slate was not read aloud: it was only clapped. I could not tell which shot went to which audio file. This was especially difficult because the scenes did not go in order. I spent a lot of time going through every file, listening and using trial and error to label and sync the footage. I eventually was able to get through the writers room scene, and I was happy with my results. I liked the way it turned out.

When I started editing the ending scene, I ran into the same problem: this time there was no camera audio at all, and no slate. There was a hand-clap in place of a slate. This, again, made it tedious to sync the audio with the video. It was frustrating, but I did not let it get to me. I knew the deadline, and I knew I had to get through it. Our class was counting on us. I buckled down, drank some coffee, and after a few hours the scene was coming together nicely. Once I finished the scene I was again very happy with the result, and thought the scene worked perfectly.

There was one thing left to do, which was to add in the greenscreened interview clips. Charlie did a fantastic job with the chromakeying and it looked amazing! Unfortunately, the audio track from the background footage was added with the dialog of the interviews. It was decided that we would put the clips in anyway, and replace them later with the fixed versions. This was just an unfortunate circumstance, and there was nothing we could do about it, so there was no use in worrying about it; it will be fixed and be perfect soon! We were able to put everything together in the master timeline, and screen it during our time tonight. I think that is what I love most about editing; getting through all the challenges and feeling proud about the end product when you have worked so hard on it.

Overall I am proud of what we accomplished and I felt that we all learned a great deal. I believe that I was an important asset to our team, I was always willing to help with whatever we needed. I was at every casting session, I was able to share tips about production from when I produced Life and Death, I was able to share information about the Sony FS-100 from my previous experiences, I directed several scenes, I helped cast Michael for Leslie, and I was able to edit with James and make this production come to life. I felt that everyone in our class brought a lot of skills to the table, and did what they needed to do. I believe that our chemistry as a group really benefited our production as a whole.

I feel that I deserve an A- as a grade in this class because of everything that I contributed to our production, I was engaged in everything that we were doing as a class, and I kept a positive attitude throughout our ups and our downs.

Overall, I think this class was a great experience. Lastly, I want to thank you Keith for providing us with direction, support, knowledge, and insight into the real world whether it was about being a parent, interning in LA, or tips on how to use social media to our advantage. I think I can speak for our entire class when I say that we greatly value and appreciate your passion for media and story telling. I believe you have inspired us all, and taught us all how important it is to learn how to work in a group effectively. I hope to keep in touch with you as I venture forward and continue to grow. We will play that round of golf sometime.

Sincerely,
Chris

Monday May 5th

Filled out teacher evaluations

Watched films we made from Monday

Keith gave us a killer speech to inspire us to follow our dreams

Chatting with Chad

Notes, for paper, from talking with Chad:

Wanted to be a sports manager, had to stick with Journalism

Have you ever had a bad day, and how did you overcome it?
Stars don't know their lines
He doesn't worry about it

Companies who can make 5x their budget by selling their movies internationally, while only going movie on demand/dvd in the US

Acting class by request of manager, had never thought about acting before

Facebook and Twitter - actor's best tool - networking

Uses sports analogies

Favorite production?
Sniper: Reloaded - South africa, shooting guns, chilling with giraffes
Lake Placid 2 - Director got bullied by actor who just wanted a paycheck
WWII movie - Director had a strong stance when he needed to

Monday

Journals due on the 7th of May

What do you feel you brought to the production? Form start to finish?

What grade did you earn in the class?

What Seems to be the Officer Problem?

Today we shot the Kip cut scene in the S lot. Kip did great and I think this scene is going to be hilarious to watch in the full film. Although it was a little cold, we shot everything that we needed. So far everything that we have shot has been great. Hopefully after this weekend we will have everything shot and we will be able to start post production on Monday. However, if we have to push some shooting to Monday, we will still be in good shape; it wouldn't be a problem.

PA James is Framed

Today James stepped up to the plate to play as the PA whom gets thrown out of the studio in cuffs after being framed for Kip's call girl incident. I took over the direction for this scene, and I think everything went well. It wasn't a complicated scene, and it was a quick day overall. It was a good thing we got it done because it started to downpour as soon as we finished a few shots outside.

Second Shoot - Interviews

Reed in his first interview

Fortunately I have been feeling better and was able to come to class tonight. For our second shoot we are filming the interviews with the Reed, David, and Corey characters. James is directing the first two with Reed and David, and I will be taking over for Corey's interviews. 

David takes on his interviews

Overall the interviews went over well, we got everything done without getting kicked out of the room! Production is underway, this is actually happening!

First Shoot Date

Unfortunately I was unable to attend class for our first day shooting due to illness. I will hopefully be in class Wednesday and catch up with everyone then. I looked through the production stills that were posted on Facebook, and everything looked great! The production design was awesome, the room looked like an official writer's room. I am excited to see what else our class can do with this film!

Filling in the Calendar

Today we are in class, going over the things we discussed last Wednesday, and discussing new concerns. First on our agenda is to talk about what locations we are going to use for the studio, office, and reception area. Depending on schedules, availability may dictate where we shoot our scenes. I think we are going to shoot in Park for the majority of our scenes. We are planning to start shooting next week, Monday and Wednesday, with probably the writing room scenes first, depending on which actors are available.

Right now we are looking at a schedule something like this:

1. Writers room
2. Interviews
3. Kips dressing room
4. Studio reception room/greeting room
5. Corey's office

It's looking like we are going to have at least five shoot dates, during class time and possibly on a few weekends.

Figuring Out Our Unanswered Questions

Hunter throws up a pose for the log pic

As we all talk around our long table in the pub, we try to fit together our remaining puzzle pieces to this production. What is the name of the show going to be? Are we going to have a title sequence? What kind of animals are going to be on the show, and are they going to be dictated by the puppets that are available to us? These are all questions we are going to have to figure out soon so we can get this production underway.

Today, Nick showed us an audition of his friend Chris Kelly, who we had thought might make a good Kip character. Based on his tape, he does make a good fit, and we have agreed he would work as the Kip character. For now, we will put him down as the Kip character.

Our plan is to have the following done by class on Monday:

• Finalize script, and elaborate on the backstory of the show. 
• Wardrobe review, report on Monday.
• How to approach intro
• Keith suggested that the show opens with the children's show opening, and then we slowly zoom out to show Corey reviewing an old episode, and then going into his or her dialog. 
• Locations scouted
• Peggy Williams?
• Collaboration room in Park for writer's room?
• Possible first shoot date scheduled?

It was a good thing there were no random monday night rap concerts going on during our time here like last time. Tonight we were able to get our plan of action set, and we are all going to be working over the weekend to get things in motion before class on Monday. 

Casting - Our Picks

Today in class we reviewed all the audition tapes and discussed who we wanted to cast, and we are pretty much all in total agreement with the following picks:

Brandon - Reed
Canon - David
Katherine - Make-up Artist
Ava - Corey
Mallory - PA
Sky - Writer

Need:
Kip - Possibly Chris Kelly
Leslie - Possibly Pete Johanns

Lets hope these picks go over better than my NCAA bracket picks.

Casting Call - Day 2: The Downgrade

Here we are in our tiny audition room - Park 142. It's definitely a downgrade from yesterday, but we are making it work. With only 30 minutes left in our session, we have had three people come in for an audition. Like yesterday, everyone who has come in has read the parts well, our decisions are going to be tough. Although not as many people came to audition as we hoped, at least we have some to work with. I believe our plan for Monday is to review the audition tapes and narrow down our picks. 

Casting Call - Day 1

It's day one of auditions. We all met up at our usual classroom at 6:10pm, and came up with a game plan. Our room we originally reserved was too noisy because it was right next to WICB, so Danielle took out Park rm. 279. We took up all the equipment to film the auditions, and Charlie took on the task of putting up signs on the room downstairs to let people know we have switched rooms. We set up the camera and tripod while listening to Polka Radio on Pandora. After about ten minutes of that, we switched to Tuesday's Gone Radio, while we were waiting for the first person to audition. In the beginning it was not looking very well, at 7:10pm we still hadn't seen one person audition. At 7:40 we finally had a girl show up, but she decided to come tomorrow instead of auditioning today. The wait continues. Finally, Sky came to audition. I have worked with him before when he played a role on the show I produced last semester, and based on his reading, he makes a great candidate for the part of Reed.

After Sky, Canon, a girl, Ava, and another guy, Brandon, came to audition. They were all also very good, and are definitely potential cast members. As of now our whole class agrees that Sky makes a great writer, Canon makes a great David, Ava would work well as Corey, and Brandon makes a perfect Reed. Overall, today went well and even though the beginning started off slow, we have people to work with! We are all hopeful to have more people come to audition tomorrow, but if we at least get the same amount of people as today we will be all set.