- Take editing workshop with Ken Filewych - Finish post-production on "Persephone" - Find music, special effects editor and sound mixer to finish "No Time Like The Present" - Submit all three finished films to a variety of festivals - Write 2nd draft of "Endangered Hero" - Apply for grant funding for next short film project
Well, that's already morphed a bit. Partly because of my desire to re-edit "Coda" after seeing it on the big screen, but mostly I'm cutting back because my next short film project has become much bigger than anticipated, plus I'm planning to start production on it this year. And my health is still iffy. So post-production on "No Time Like The Present" is being postponed for yet another year (sorry to my cast and crew!) and, although I will continue to work on my screenplay, I am no longer worried about having the 2nd draft of "Endangered Hero" completely finished by the end of this year. Normally, I would postpone my next film rather than these works in progress, but the next film is rather time sensitive and I have finally admitted to myself that I can't do it all at once. So here's my updated list of goals for 2008:
- Take editing workshop with Ken Filewych - Re-edit "Coda" - Finish post-production on "Persephone" - Submit both finished films to a variety of festivals - Work on 2nd draft of "Endangered Hero" - Apply for grant funding for "Kwe Jibon," my next short film project - Development and production phases of "Kwe Jibon"
Okay, I know that may not look much different and maybe it even looks like more (it kind of does to me now that I've written it out). So I guess it's not so much that I'm cutting back as that I've shifted priorities. Hmm, that strangely makes me feel a bit better... except for the part of me that thought I was actually cutting back and taking care of my health. I guess we'll see how the rest of the year goes.
As I posted previously, I started a blog specifically for "Coda in G Minor." But I figured since this is my main film blog, I should give a heads up here when the "Coda" blog has been updated. So here are the latest posts for you to check out:
Just wanted to announce that "Coda in G Minor" will be screened at the $100 Film Festival on Friday, March 14, 2008 at 7:00 p.m. at the Plaza Theatre (Calgary, Alberta).
I submitted my very first grant application yesterday. Yay me! Actually, yay us! Because it's for a film project that I'm working on with one of my herland comrades. And I've decided on my first grant writing ground rule: Don't look the grant over right away after you've sent it; give yourself at least a day to bask in the glory of completion before you start noticing the things that you wish you'd done differently.
Next rule: Always expect the unexpected. Not original, granted, but my mother says that you can expect one catastrophe per grant. Well, we had ours in terms of a technical glitch with our Project Description (only the most important document in the application), which resulted in only having half an hour to revise it instead of the entire evening that I had set aside. Not that the important information isn't there, not that it lacks passion or poetry, but we meander in and out of third person and as a text editor that drives me crazy (and it's a little embarrassing to find in my own work).
Another thing that I wish we'd done differently: explained our project title. See, we came up with this cool title of Kwe Jibon. Kwe is an Anishinaabemowin word that means women and reflects part of my cultural background. Jibon is a Bengali word that means life (as in life force or spirit, not the prosaic day-to-day living) and reflects part of Ranjene's cultural background. So the combination loosely means The Spirit of Women, which we chose because it's about celebrating the lives of these particular women, rather than dwelling on the way they died. The film will have a different title, but that will be informed by the results of our research, since this is a documentary and documentaries are, by their very nature, evolutionary processes. This particular omission is not crucial, since our cultural backgrounds are irrelevant for an Alberta Foundation for the Arts grant, but I can't help but think there might be a few jurors scratching their heads about why we've got this strange phrase all over our grant application.
And I kind of wish that we'd included a Table of Contents for our Supporting Documents. Being emerging filmmakers writing our first grant, we wanted to be thorough and in addition to our reference letters and demo reels, we had a couple of samples of ways that we had organized previous projects, various promotional information about our screenings along with some of our initial research for this project and some documentation to support our budget figures. With that much information covering such a wide range of topics, I realized as I looked over it that it might have been helpful to have provided a table of contents.
But still, we've accomplished the completion of our very first grant! Now for the waiting…
I'm currently taking a couple of weeks to hibernate so that I can start my sleep restriction program. This has become necessary as my health has deteriorated to a worrisome point and my insomnia has grown much worse. Trying to figure out how I let my health get to this point, I began to look back at my activities this past year. Work wasn't all that different from previous years, but family, friend and film activities were definitely increased: two out-of-town family weddings, my grandfather's 90th birthday bash (also out of town) and a friend wedding that I worked my ass off for but didn't end up going to because the friendship dissolved. (Don't feel too bad for me since that friend was strangely jealous of the fact that my fledgling film career was more important to me than her wedding. I mean, obviously my stuff is more important to me and her stuff is more important to her because everybody's stuff is going to be more important to them than anyone else, and it's not as though that stopped me from working my ass off for her… but I digress.)
While the family stuff was busy and the friend stuff was definitely draining, I think the state of my health has more to do with the way that I overextended myself in film. So I ended up making a list of my film activities and I decided to extend it back to the beginning of my adventures in film since I first started with the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers a mere 19 months ago. So here is my film career in review:
- 16mm Film School (CSIF): Filmed "No Time Like The Present" on 16mm (trailer)
November
- Grant Writing Workshop – Sandi Somers (CSIF) - Introduction to After Effects Workshop – David Jones (CSIF)
December
- Worked on "Ice Climber's Waltz" dir. James Reckseidler - Filmed "Coda in G Minor" on Super 8 (excerpt) - Low Budget Lighting Workshop (blog post) – Joshua Whitford (CSIF)
2007
January
- Applied to Herland's IN:Camera Workshop (blog post) - Set Etiquette & Protocol Workshop (blog post) – Christopher G. Sprague (IATSE)
February
- Lamp Operator Workshop (blog post) – William Hornecker (IATSE) - Qualified as Lamp Op Permittee (IATSE 212) - 10-day intensive IN:Camera Workshop (blog post) (Herland): Filmed "Persephone" on 16mm (blog post)
March
- Reshot "Persephone" underworld footage on Super 8 (blog post)
April
- Super 8 Transfer Workshop – David Jones (CSIF)
May
- Cinematography for Film and Video Workshop – Jarrett Craig (CSIF) - Herland Film Festival workshop screening of "Persephone" (excerpt) - Started 6-month Feature Film Screenwriting Workshop – Jason Long (CSIF) - Recorded non-synch sound for "No Time Like The Present"
June
- Handmade Film Workshop (blog post) – James Reckseidler (CSIF) - Reshot and hand processed "Coda" ghost footage
July – September
- Wrote first draft of feature length screenplay "Endangered Hero" - Worked on "Curse of the Piano" dir. Mike Peterson
October
- Editing Workshop (blog post) – Deco Dawson (CSIF) - Finished Feature Film Screenwriting Workshop – Jason Long (CSIF)
November
- Finished post-production on "Coda in G Minor"
December
- Submitted "Coda in G Minor" to $100 Film Festival (blog post) - Low Budget Special Effects Workshop – Jeff Hanni (CSIF)
In Summary:
11 weekend workshops, 1 10-day full-time workshop, 1 5-month part-time film school, 1 6-month part-time writing workshop, 2 productions worked on for other directors, 3 short films of mine shot, 1 film screened in workshop form, 1 film finished and submitted to festival, 1 feature length screenplay written
I think that's a heck of a lot for anyone, let alone a grrl with Lupus, Sjögren's and chronic migraines… I think I need to be more focussed and disciplined in 2008 so that I don't make myself this sick again.
My goals for 2008: (which I am posting here to remind myself throughout the year what I'm supposed to be focussing on)
- Take editing workshop with Ken Filewych - Finish post-production on "Persephone" - Find music, special effects editor and sound mixer to finish "No Time Like The Present" - Submit all three finished films to a variety of festivals - Write 2nd draft of "Endangered Hero" - Apply for grant funding for next short film project
So if anyone notices me taking on anything more than that, smack me!
Coda Finished and Submitted to $100 Film Festival!
Current mood: accomplished
Category: Art and Photography
I finally have a finished film!
Mind you, the finished product of "Coda in G Minor" looks somewhat different than the rough excerpt of raw footage that I uploaded previously... but I'm pretty happy with the results. Now let's see if the film festival jury likes it.
Of course, there's that part of me that wants to keep working on it to see if there's some way to include the footage that I couldn't figure out how to include without interrupting the pacing and flow of the film. And I could probably keep tweaking it endlessly. But there comes a time when you have to decide that something is finished, let it go and move on to the next thing. And I think I'm willing to do this with Coda. Finally. Maybe someday in the distant future, when I'm putting together a DVD of my early short films, I'll make a director's cut of Coda... increasing its running time from 2 minutes and 33 seconds to 3 whole minutes! Because by that point in my career I should hope that I could figure out how to work in that extra 30 seconds of footage. Then again, maybe by that point in my career I'll realize that there's no point in going back and tinkering with my very first short film that's less than three minutes long.
Now, technically, some people might argue that "Persephone" was my first finished film since it was screened at the Herland Film & Video Festival in 2007. But that was a workshop film screened in the workshop screening portion of the festival. And I have new footage that has already been shot and is ready to replace some of the workshop footage. There's no way that I'm sending out Persephone until that old footage is cut (preferably into a million little pieces so that no one ever has to see it ever again). So to sum up, I don't consider Persephone to be finished.
But back to Coda... if it gets selected for the $100 Film Festival, I'll need to make a film print. I have an interesting idea for that process that I picked up from Deco Dawson when he was here for his residency. Once I figure out how to make it work, I'll post the details here.
Now I guess it's time to start work on the second draft of my first feature length screenplay. I'm talking about that a bit on my writing blog (but not as much as I've been meaning to so no need to go rushing over there yet). The first draft got quite a good response, so I'm rather excited to get back to work on it.
Deco Dawson Editing Workshop
Current mood: artistic
Category: Art and Photography
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to take the editing workshop with Deco Dawson while he was the artist-in-residence at the CSIF. This wasn’t your basic learn-this-editing-software type of editing course; it was far more conceptual than that. This workshop was more about understanding what is possible and giving us sufficient tools to figure out how to make it a reality. The first day was spent at the computer in Final Cut Pro, but don’t confuse it with a course in how to use Final Cut Pro. Yes, Deco was showing us how to use certain elements of Final Cut Pro, but the whole time he was comparing the digital editing that he was showing us with traditional editing techniques of in-camera effects and optical printing.
One concept that Deco discussed that was new to me to was to think of film in terms of single frames (it’s quite possible that I’ve been told that before, but this was the first time it sunk in). For example, if you wanted to slow a film down using traditional editing, you would use the optical printer and duplicate single frames for step printing. Or, if you wanted to speed it up, you would leave out single frames for skip printing. Both of these techniques can also be used in Final Cut Pro, as well, giving you a different look than if you simply changed the speed using the normal Final Cut method. Another important idea that Deco shared and that was a light bulb moment for me was the use of layers in Final Cut Pro. I was certainly aware of the existence of layers, but hadn’t ever really made use of them. But when he compared it to layers in Photoshop, all of a sudden it made sense because I’ve certainly Photoshopped more images than I can count.
The second day was spent with the optical printer. Deco showed us how to load both the printer’s projector and camera, as well the basics of how to operate it. All of which was pretty straightforward, not that I was under any illusions that those basics were what made the optical printer intimidating. Then he went through the editing effects that we’d seen on the computer the previous day and asked us how to accomplish the same effects on the optical printer. While some of the effects took more thought than others, he certainly made his point that if you can conceptualize it then you can make it happen on the optical printer. It just takes time and patience. Or, conversely, if there’s a traditional technique that you want to apply digitally, again you just need to be able to conceptualize it and you can make it happen on the computer.
All in all, I left the workshop feeling quite a bit more confident in my editing abilities and, even more importantly, I left it inspired and excited to get back to editing the three short films that I currently have in post-production. No small feat!
I realize it's been absolute ages since I've posted but I have been doing film stuff, I swear! I took the long format screenwriting workshop at the CSIF that will be wrapping up next weekend (I'll be posting about that on my writing blog eventually... when I do, I'll post a link here as well). I worked on a short film by Mike Peterson called "Curse of the Piano," which will be screening next Friday at the Cantos Music Museum. I went to a couple of screenings at the Calgary International Film Festival, including the gala screening of "Walk All Over Me" (co-written by Jason Long, my screenwriting instructor) and the Alberta Centennial Award shorts that featured "Ice Climber's Waltz," a film by James Reckseidler that I worked on last fall. Plus I took an editing workshop with Deco Dawson last weekend (it was amazing and I'll be posting about it here in the next couple of days). But now that my insane summer is over, I promise I'll start posting here again. Starting with...
I went to NUTV's Doc School screening at the University of Calgary tonight. My partner in crime... er... I mean my partner from IN:Camera, Ranjene, was screening her documentary "From Darkness to Light." It was both brave and beautiful, a personal journey that she chose to share with the world. I can't wait to work with her on another project.
For more about Doc School, you can check out the NUTV website. They also have documentaries from previous years posted on the website for your viewing pleasure. You'll have to wait to see this year's crop, however, unless you came to the screening tonight or manage to catch them when they air on Shaw (unfortunately, I'm not sure when theat will be).
Doc School looks like a great program and apparently it's worth the equivalent of receiving a $12,000 cash grant from an arts body to make a film! But if you're interested in participating in Doc School, you'd better get involved with NUTV now because you'll need to be an active contributing member before putting in your application next spring.
P.S. I'm currently listening to my pre-release copy of "Foiled for the Last Time" and I'm LOVING it!
Lessons Learned the Hard Way
Current mood: anxious
Category: Art and Photography
Lesson learned during my Handmade Film workshop...
Why you should not use a knife to open a cartridge of Super 8 film:
And that's after one week of healing, so just imagine how nasty it was at first!
Okay, maybe most people would not try to open a Super 8 cartridge with a knife, but who knew you could do that much damage with a butter knife?! Anyway, I've learned that it's better to pull the 50' of film out of the cartridge than to try to actually open the cartridge. (And if you didn't shoot the entire roll, just burn off the end anyway so you can pull it out easily.)
As for the workshop itself, I'll talk about that as soon as I have transferred my hand processed film to digital (for some reason, the DVD that was supposed to have my transfer on it was completely blank... *sigh*).
While I'm posting bits from my films, I thought I'd post a very rough excerpt from "Coda in G Minor." Bear in mind that this is essentially raw footage strung together on my home computer using Windows Movie Maker. I have yet to take this into the CSIF to use their editing suite and choose my takes and adjust brightness and contrast... you get the idea. Oh and this footage is a very good example of why you should CHECK THE GATE when operating the camera. I'm hoping that the black line in the top left corner of the film is something I'll be able to get rid of when I do my actual edit. But enough disclaimers, here's a bit of "Coda":
accomplished
sick
artistic
anxious
busy
