The 2010 MC Welcome Week Video

For the second year in the row, I was asked to film the Welcome Week video for Mississippi College. The video is shown to incoming freshmen at the first Welcome Week assembly in Swor Auditiorium. The video always features that year's student government association and usually is a comedy. If you are interested, you can watch my video for last year's Welcome Week here.

Even though I got hired to do this video almost two months ago, I was really stumped on what the video idea would be. I stayed this way up until I made a phone call to my friend Daniel Jones, who was also on the SGA. I had told Daniel a few weeks ago about a brief idea to make the video like an 1980's film... more specifically, a John Hughes movie like The Breakfast Club. However, I could never really do anything with that idea or make it feasible in my mind. However, Daniel took my 1980's film idea and gave it a good plot structure-- the film would revolve around an incoming freshmen who arrives to Mississippi College on move-in day, only to find he has been transported in time to MC in the 1980's. And everything is a cliche and really lame.

Immediately after getting off the phone with Daniel, my creative juices began to go crazy and I began to write furiously. I wrote most of the script that night. I would finish the first draft the very next day. Suddenly, I went from having no idea what I was doing on this project to shooting out an eighteen page script on my MacBook Pro in the span of two days. It's crazy what inspiration can do to you.

Getting ready for the video was pretty stressful. This is mostly because I didn't give myself much time to prepare. Most of the props and costumes (that I was responsible for-- most of the SGA brought their own 80's clothing) were not purchased until the day before the video shoot. Also, some of the props had to be constructed by hand. My sister made a sign for the "Annual Welcome Week Potato Sack Race" and my mom had to sew up the potato sacks used in the race. Because I waited until the day before the shoot to get all of this together, it ended up being a very stressful day.

Despite the day being stressful, the night was really great. I stayed at my friend Guy's apartment. Daniel Jones also stayed the night here. My friends Austen, Austen's cousin, Daniel Mortimer, Jake and Zach were all present during the night. We all had a lot of fun together (fill in the blanks with your imagination here).

While the Welcome Week video shoot was long and exhausting, it went incredibly well and had very few hiccups. The only really big hiccup we had was that SGA Chief Justice Thujee Lhendup was stuck in Thailand and was not present for the shoot. Thujee had a pretty big part in the original script so, for a moment or two, I was a little freaked out. However, we were able to give Baker Carroll his role because Baker's original role was small and identical to the one portrayed by Thomas Ballard.

We shot from 9 am to 5 pm, with an hour break for lunch at 12 pm. We stayed on schedule until the end of the shoot when things started going slower than they should have. Still, what we achieved was very impressive-- we filmed an 18 page screenplay in a matter of hours and the film that resulted isn't too bad. In fact, it's pretty entertaining. That does not happen often. The reason behind this is that I had some great people helping me out (Zach, Blossom, Daniel) and I had a SGA that believed in the project and gave me their best work all day long.

By the end of the day, I was soaked from head to toe in sweat but I was happy. Sure, I smelled and looked like a hobo but I knew that the shoot went well and I knew that the video was going to be fun.

The editing process was a pretty tough one. I put in a lot of really long hours for this film. For three days straight, I edited from 10 am to 3 am, taking breaks only to eat and maybe to exercise. It was pretty intense. The worst part of the editing process was definitely the audio looping portion. All the sound recorded on my Canon EOS Rebel T2i was unusable due to the settings recorded in and the on-board mic being really bad. So I had to loop in all the audio shot with my Canon XH-A1 (which works as my B-Roll camera and sound camera) by hand. So, when you are watching the video, know that every time someone talks, I had to carefully synch that audio to their mouths. This process took two days to complete. It was fairly miserable.

Still, I had a lot of fun on this project and I really am happy with the results-- especially since we only had one day to film it all. I love 80's movies, especially the John Hughes films, so to actually get to make my own for once really was like a dream come true. I mean, I never thought I'd get to replicate the infamous The Breakfast Club dance scene in one of my own movies. It's not everyday you get to do that. So that really was a pleasure.

If you'd like to watch the video, you can watch it here or watch it embedded below.

And thanks again to anyone who was in the video or helped out in the making of it.

Mad Genius: Creative Fusion Visit

This past Friday, I went and visited Mad Genius: Creative Fusion, which is a Mississippi film production company located in Ridgeland, Mississippi. The company is the result of a merger between Eyevox Film and Video and Mad Genius. They specialize in branding, advertising in both print and film, animation and a bunch of other cool, artistic stuff.

Recently, they did a few television commercials for Mississippi College, which, as most of you know (again, I'm assuming if you read this blog you'd have to know me in person), is where I went to college. One commercial in particular stood out to me. This commercial is really well put together and actually features some of my friends and other people I know. It really does a good job of giving a feel for the campus. And it looks really good (I'm assuming the Red One was used to film it). If you haven't seen it before, check it out below.

The reason for my visit to Mad Genius was Wade Acuff. If you read my post on Bags and Boards, you would know that Wade is a local artist and animator who worked for Eyevox, which recently became Mad Genius. Wade and I have stayed friends since shooting on Bags and Boards started and he's stayed in my life to give me some helpful advice and criticism when it comes to my work.

He wanted me to come to Mad Genius so I could see a film that he had helped out on. So I went up there on Friday at 3 pm and we screened a rough cut version of the film. The movie was called Murderabilia. The movie dealt with a man looking for a certain item related to a horrible murder. This takes him to a murderabilia dealer and we get to explore this strange world and find out what kind of person would sell such things. A teaser trailer was shot for the film to help advertise it for the auditioning process. It helps give a feel of the film's overall atmosphere. You can watch this below.

Overall, I really liked the movie. I had a few quips here and there but, considering this was a rough cut of the film, I'm not sure if I can really make a full on judgment on it yet. I have been told that some of the things I had a problem with have already been fixed so who knows how good the final cut of it is. If you get the chance to see this movie somehow in local festivals or some other fashion, I'd suggest you give it a shot. The image of it looks beautiful and it has some very effective, hard-hitting moments. It also really explores a form of business that I never really thought about but apparently exists. The concept of murderabilia really intrigued me and, as I got dragged further into its world, I was definitely uncomfortable but interested.

After seeing the film, I got to meet the director, who was a very humble and nice guy. I got to hear about some of the frustrations of the shoot as well as how much he wished he had done differently. I cannot tell you how refreshing it was to hear this. Sometimes when you go through the frustrating process that is filmmaking, you start to think that no one else has gone through this or felt this way. So it was nice to meet someone who seemed to approach and view his work in a similar manner to myself.

Wade and I spent the rest of our time at Mad Genius talking about future projects that we are both trying to get going as well as our opinions on other local projects that are popping up. It was good to talk to him and see where he is going in filmmaking in the next year as well as to get his opinion on some of the things I want to do in the next year. I have found that there really is nothing as enjoyable as talking about filmmaking with someone who is also in the field and knows much more about it than you do. You can learn a lot as well as find a lot of similarities in the way you view / think about things with someone else.

Overall, it was a really good visit to a local business that is putting out some very professional and creative work in Mississippi.