Coming Soon: Self Portrait

If you ran into me over the break, you probably know that I am working on my Self Portrait for Professor Lubomir Kocka's Directing for Film Television class right now. You know this because I probably harassed you into being in it. I got the assignment before the break started and, for some reason or another, I began to instantly obsess over it.

Basically the assignment is that I have to create a visual work that creatively expresses me as a person, filmmaker, artist, etc. I could go about this in a variety of ways. I decided to go a route that is slightly experimental. Since I was going back to Mississippi for a week during Spring Break, I decided to interview as many people from my life as I could during that time. This included people that were my friends, teachers, actors, crew members, parents, grandparents, ex-girlfriends, etc. I did my best to get what was best and worst about me out of these people. The goal was to get a variety of opinions, ideas and stories from these people and then to express what they say about me visually.

Basically, I wanted to have the people that grew up with me paint a picture of who I am. I didn't want to influence them. I didn't want to say who I am myself. I wanted them to tell me and paint my project for me. I took the assignment as sort of a spiritual quest to try and figure out who I am as a person, what I've done wrong and what I've achieved.

Now I sit here at 2:24 am rendering clips and patiently waiting to cut everything together. I have over two hours of interviews, home movie clips, Mississippi landscape footage, etc. My Self Portrait is only supposed to be five minutes long.

Needless to say, I have a lot of work ahead of me. The crazy part is that I'm not even done filming yet. Still, I couldn't be more excited and enthusiastic about this project. I'm working hard to create a real sensory experience with this film. I hope it works the way it does in my head. It's going to be a pretty strange thing to watch.

I'm still blown away by how many people did interviews for me in the break and by how much content each of them gave me. It's going to be hard to find the nuggets of gold in each of their interviews. You can see a screenshot of each person who participated below.

Andrew Hinds: friend, composer, co-writer, artist

Guy Stricklin: friend, artist, DP

Laura Murphy: friend, actor, performer

Zach Osborn: friend, actor, co-writer, performer

Margaret: ex-girlfriend

Rebecca Goysich: friend, film extra

Kelli Gann: friend, film extra

Dr. Everett: undergraduate English / Film professor

Hugh Latimer: grandfather

Kevin and Michele Caldwell: parents

Caleb Graham: friend, actor

Jonathan Blossom: friend, actor, various crew member positions

As you can see, I have a lot to go off of. I have to have the project ready to screen a week from today. Wish me luck. I'll be sure to put it on here. Also, I'll be putting up articles on the One Minute Film and the Urban Legend Film from last quarter soon as well.