Yes, we got 91 set-ups1 in 3 days. That’s about 30 a day. The 6 day show had 106 set-ups. Bottom line is we got a shit-ton of shots.
And this was despite company moves, lots of extras, a tired crew, and broken/missing equipment. The odd thing is no one brought up any objections or said [...]

As I get ready to DP this Sunday by box building (for lights) and color temperature fretting, I decided to stop by one of the other sets that was filming today.
I knew they were shooting in a park near downtown. What I didn’t know was this little park had a lost forest.
As I walked in [...]

Ten cans of film have been turned in after the longest producing job I’ve had yet - six days of summer thesis kick-off. You get three days to shoot your thesis film, or you can team up and double your resources as the DP and Director did here and shoot for six days with twice [...]

The storm has calmed. Last week really was the perfect storm, as my friend Justin and I described it1. I had always heard stories of film schoolers getting loaded with a ton of work and scrambling to meet deadlines. I thought that was a myth. I was proven wrong.
As usual, a new draft of my [...]

On Monday, my Producer and I finally got around to doing some pre-production work for my F3. The two main locations I need is an open cubicle area and a really nice corner office, one that is soul-worthy.
Most of the downtown area is either government buildings or law offices, with a minimal one [...]

In looking at past posts, I realized I never laid out what exactly an F3 is, the project that has and will be taking my attention and life for the next few months.
The F stands for Filmmaking. The F1 was our little digital short, the F2 the half day film exercise, and now the F3. [...]

For the past three days at The Film School we’ve been having Crew Drills. Crew Drills are basically a two hour run through of an F3 set. That’s enough time to set up, get a shot or two, and then take everything down for the next show.
It accomplishes a few things. The entire crew gets [...]

Vacation is over. Today is the first day of fall semester. There’s a pizza mixer at noon so my class, now 2nd Years, can meet the 1st years, the class that will be crewing our films. Here’s a lineup of the classes we’ll be taking:

Filmmaking 3
Screenwriting 2
Advanced Cinematography
Post-Production
Film Genres

Two days left on the last thesis show. This is another six day double - the Director of Photography gave up his film to DP and co-write this show. To my knowledge, this is the largest thesis production ever. It’s a sci-fi film with massive sets built on both soundstages and a giant warehouse. They [...]

I’m finally done with my two back-to-back film sets as Key Grip and Best Boy Electric. We wrapped at 12:45 am last night, pushing just about every Film School rule with overtime and wrap times to the limit.
I learned a few things during the past two sets. One, though this is more true if you’re [...]