Knox, Cody, and I worked in Chapel Hill this weekend. We had an initial plan to go and shoot b-roll around the town. Irina, the subject, grow up there. She went to high school there, and intended to transfer back to UNC Chapel Hill. A lot of her friends that I had been working on cntacting have moved away, but through the week I finally managed to get into touch with their highschool english teacher, Michael Irwin, I've mentioned him before.
Mr. Irwin agreed to let us come over, and he was going to give us an interview. It really was a boost to my morale for the assignment, and I think to the groups. This was one of the first personal interviews we had booked. Saturday morning, just before we were hitting the road to Chapel Hill, Mr. Irwin canceled. It was a pretty hard kick. We ended up just with the b-roll. We scouted some locations for possible future shoots, but felt a little defeated, I think. It's really been a struggle to get the kind of material we has planned on.
Sunday, November 12, 2017
11/5
Cody and Knox went back to Charlotte for b-roll and an interview. I couldn't make my schedule work, I had too much other stuff going on, and the potential for an interview thee upcoming week, also the film festival. Everybody deals with it, but I am struggling a bit here, so close to the end.
Knox is handling the interview with her college professor, because I have other classes on Monday. The professor's schedule wouldn't allow him to see us on a weekend.
I had gotten the email for CJ, another high school friend of Irina, a while back, but had no response from him. Mr. Irwin gave me CJ's phone number. I finally managed to get in touch with him over the phone. I feel like I am communicating professionally, but all these people are really slow to respond. Even talking to CJ through texts, which was his desired medium, he would take a say or two to respond at times. He was initially excited about the whole idea, I didn't have to persuade him or anything, but its just slow communication. I am trying to walk the line of being persistent but not pushy at the moment.
Knox is handling the interview with her college professor, because I have other classes on Monday. The professor's schedule wouldn't allow him to see us on a weekend.
I had gotten the email for CJ, another high school friend of Irina, a while back, but had no response from him. Mr. Irwin gave me CJ's phone number. I finally managed to get in touch with him over the phone. I feel like I am communicating professionally, but all these people are really slow to respond. Even talking to CJ through texts, which was his desired medium, he would take a say or two to respond at times. He was initially excited about the whole idea, I didn't have to persuade him or anything, but its just slow communication. I am trying to walk the line of being persistent but not pushy at the moment.
11/12
Initially I did not think my schedule would allow me to volunteer with the festival this year. I was disappointing about that, because my first year at UNCW I was able to participate, and I really enjoyed it. I mainly worked in the transportation department my first year and got to meet some really interesting filmmakers. This year, it was last minute, but I did manage to work in some volunteer time. This time around I mostly worked the front gate at Jengo's Playhouse, checking people's passes for the backyard activities. It was not great. It was cold, boring, and lonely. However, it did allow me a free pass to see some films.
My favorite film was Blame. It was about a relationship between a high school substitute and a student, mirroring the plot of the play they were studying in the film, The Crucible. It was fairly predictable, and the high school drama a bit cliche, but it was still interesting. It also had some neat lighting, one scene in particular where the two main characters are sitting in a car. It is raining outside, and they are sitting still. There are cars going by on the street behind them, and at one point the headlights shine inside the car, and with the distortion of the water, it has a nice illumination. There was a twist ending, but I don't think it was justified, like it was not properly setup in hindsight.
I was most excited to see Bernard and Huey. This was not based on too much, I didn't know a lot about the film, but I liked the actors, and the tone the description suggested. I was a little disappointed. The premise was interesting to me, two old friends reuniting, dealing with their lost youth, but I just didn't really understand the development. It might just be me, but I thought the ending was sort of abrupt, and I didn't understand how or why the characters had changed. Bernard has a little more explanation, but Huey, just seems to take a abrupt turn to being a good guy. The ending was just to neat for the rest of the film.
I also saw Everything Beautiful is Far Away, it was OK. A bit slow, and just seemed sort of shallow to me. I feel like it could have been trimmed down into a short, and felt much more satisfying. The Eyeslicer Roadshow Presented in Smell-O-Vision was fairly odd. I didn't personally get it, but I felt bad for the makers, because over half the people left midway through. It was well crafted, and they seemed into the project, but it was a little much for people in a two hour format. Two of the best things I saw were shorts, one before a feature and another in the Cinekink block. The first was a music video but based around a live action mouse, and the other was a sex club choreographed dance.
I am torn on volunteering. On one hand it is a way to get into the festival for free. I think the passes are a bit overpriced, considering how much of a challenge it is to get to enough events to make it worth it. Particularly while you are volunteering it is hard to work out a screening schedule. There was a short I had worked on, that I had to miss because of the schedule. So even though they give you a pass, it is really hard to use it. Most of the films I really wanted to see, I missed for the same reason. It has some networking benefits though, a bit like an internship. If you are interested in getting a paid position in the festival, it is a good opportunity to show if you are a hard worker. On that thought though, if you are not that serious of a worker I would suggest avoiding it. People talk a lot there, and it makes you and UNCW look bad if you don't take the work seriously.
My favorite film was Blame. It was about a relationship between a high school substitute and a student, mirroring the plot of the play they were studying in the film, The Crucible. It was fairly predictable, and the high school drama a bit cliche, but it was still interesting. It also had some neat lighting, one scene in particular where the two main characters are sitting in a car. It is raining outside, and they are sitting still. There are cars going by on the street behind them, and at one point the headlights shine inside the car, and with the distortion of the water, it has a nice illumination. There was a twist ending, but I don't think it was justified, like it was not properly setup in hindsight.
I was most excited to see Bernard and Huey. This was not based on too much, I didn't know a lot about the film, but I liked the actors, and the tone the description suggested. I was a little disappointed. The premise was interesting to me, two old friends reuniting, dealing with their lost youth, but I just didn't really understand the development. It might just be me, but I thought the ending was sort of abrupt, and I didn't understand how or why the characters had changed. Bernard has a little more explanation, but Huey, just seems to take a abrupt turn to being a good guy. The ending was just to neat for the rest of the film.
I also saw Everything Beautiful is Far Away, it was OK. A bit slow, and just seemed sort of shallow to me. I feel like it could have been trimmed down into a short, and felt much more satisfying. The Eyeslicer Roadshow Presented in Smell-O-Vision was fairly odd. I didn't personally get it, but I felt bad for the makers, because over half the people left midway through. It was well crafted, and they seemed into the project, but it was a little much for people in a two hour format. Two of the best things I saw were shorts, one before a feature and another in the Cinekink block. The first was a music video but based around a live action mouse, and the other was a sex club choreographed dance.
I am torn on volunteering. On one hand it is a way to get into the festival for free. I think the passes are a bit overpriced, considering how much of a challenge it is to get to enough events to make it worth it. Particularly while you are volunteering it is hard to work out a screening schedule. There was a short I had worked on, that I had to miss because of the schedule. So even though they give you a pass, it is really hard to use it. Most of the films I really wanted to see, I missed for the same reason. It has some networking benefits though, a bit like an internship. If you are interested in getting a paid position in the festival, it is a good opportunity to show if you are a hard worker. On that thought though, if you are not that serious of a worker I would suggest avoiding it. People talk a lot there, and it makes you and UNCW look bad if you don't take the work seriously.
Saturday, October 21, 2017
10/23
I spent a lot of this week trying to track more people down. It has been sort of a
rabbit hole. I started out trying to contact this one particular guy, Will McInerney. Will was the last listed caretaker of the poetry group Ira co founded. I contacted him a while back. He lives in England, so we correspond on a bit of a time delay. He is gonna do an interview through skype, but he started giving me other names to contact. Some of these names I knew, but some them I had been unable to find contact info for, and he gave me that. An altogether new name he gave me was their high school English teacher.
I had learned that Will was also one of the co-founders of the poetry group and a school mate of Ira. The teacher had a relationship with the poetry group members, but I'm not exactly clear on that. The teacher responded to email fairly quickly, but requested that I called him. I thought that would be a much easier way to figure things out. We had set up a call time, this past Friday. Knox and I were going to call him, and try to work out specifics for an interview and just discuss what he might have to offer. The call fell through for Friday, he did had a scheduling conflict with his childcare arrangement. We are going to try again ASAP.
I had learned that Will was also one of the co-founders of the poetry group and a school mate of Ira. The teacher had a relationship with the poetry group members, but I'm not exactly clear on that. The teacher responded to email fairly quickly, but requested that I called him. I thought that would be a much easier way to figure things out. We had set up a call time, this past Friday. Knox and I were going to call him, and try to work out specifics for an interview and just discuss what he might have to offer. The call fell through for Friday, he did had a scheduling conflict with his childcare arrangement. We are going to try again ASAP.
10/9
After our weekend filming in Charlotte, we spent time organizing the footage we had. Generally, we are dumping the footage on Knox's equipment, and mine, for safety. So first, I went through and watched our new footage. I saw a lot of negatives right away. The first interview we shot last weekend, was too blue, the guy's shirt was too reflective, and the lens got dirty at the lake. These things help, I suppose, because I learn from them, but out time is too valuable to be learning. This is school though, so that seems conflicting, it is time to learn, maybe.
Anyway, I organized my footage in Premier. I created a bunch of bins, named them, and split of the footage. I put together a version of one of our interviews, Todd Sumlin. I have some different ways to put that interview together, depending on how we use him and the necessary length. At this time though. I'm working on digging more and more sources up, so we can get more of a handle on what we can find.
Anyway, I organized my footage in Premier. I created a bunch of bins, named them, and split of the footage. I put together a version of one of our interviews, Todd Sumlin. I have some different ways to put that interview together, depending on how we use him and the necessary length. At this time though. I'm working on digging more and more sources up, so we can get more of a handle on what we can find.
Again
We spent the weekend in Charlotte as a complete group. We met up during the week to discuss logistics. Getting all that equipment and four people to Charlotte is a bit challenging with the cars we have. I feel like we could cut back on our equipment, but at the same time, it is better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. So it takes two cars, but we get there.
The interviews went great, I thought. They were at the same location, so we only had to get to one place. We scouted the area and settled on the specific locations at the house. I made an initial mistake, not white balancing the camera before the first interview, so that is a bit blue. Since it is a single evenly lit shot, I believe it can be fixed in post.
We got out on the water, and it was sort of an eerie feeling. We were headed to the spot where a girl died, but it conflicts with the usual light mood you might have when going out on the lake. We made it to the spot, and again it was odd, because there were no real signs of anything. It was just a small spot of beach covered in trash and brush. It was so close to people's homes, docks, and active areas.
Overall, it was a successful trip.
The interviews went great, I thought. They were at the same location, so we only had to get to one place. We scouted the area and settled on the specific locations at the house. I made an initial mistake, not white balancing the camera before the first interview, so that is a bit blue. Since it is a single evenly lit shot, I believe it can be fixed in post.
We got out on the water, and it was sort of an eerie feeling. We were headed to the spot where a girl died, but it conflicts with the usual light mood you might have when going out on the lake. We made it to the spot, and again it was odd, because there were no real signs of anything. It was just a small spot of beach covered in trash and brush. It was so close to people's homes, docks, and active areas.
Overall, it was a successful trip.
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