School Lately

It's been a long time since I blogged last. School has been very, very busy. I've been pretty exhausted and my free time has been pretty limited. Anyways, I'm about to go to bed (so I can wake up at 5:45 am and get ready to get on set for the weekend) but, before I do, I've decided to prologue my vital sleep and do a quick update on what we have been doing here.

I'm in three classes right now: Film and Digital Media (FILM 710), Sound Design (SNDS 701) and History of Cinema (CINE 705). 710 has required me to use my camera a lot so most of the images below will come from assignments from that class.

One of our first assignments was to shoot high and low key shots and then do multiple light placements. My group and I set up in Studio B and did a three hour photo shoot. You can see some select pictures below.

Our second assigment was to recreate the entire Zone system you use for determining your lighting ratio. The system goes from Zone 0 to Zone 9. Below I've included two pictures from this shoot: me at Zone 0 and me at Zone 9.

Another lighting assignment we had was to use photometrics to determine the lighting set up of a scene before we even set any lights up. And for anyone who thinks film school is just fun and games, try doing photometrics. It's a lot of math. And a lot of formulas. It definitely works but it can be pretty hard and frustrating once you start out doing it.

Below is the lighting set up we did after using photometrics to determine our lighting. Without doing all the math, we most likely would not have been able to create a set up that allows us to see the lamp bulb without it just being a giant, white spot.

Here are some quick shots of the scene from my T2i.

And here are some shots of the viewfinder for the camera that we were setting up the scene for. This is what the final image should look like.

We have also been using film cameras for the first time this quarter. "Wait... aren't you in film school?" you might ask. Well, last quarter we only studied digital film. This is because digital is a lot easier, inexpensive and forgiving than actual film. Film itself is a whole new ball game.

Shooting on film is a lot of fun. But it can also be stressful. Loading and changing a film mag is pretty difficult, especially because you have to change it blind in a changing bag (so you won't expose the film and ruin it). Film also burns pretty fast. It doesn't allow for many blotched takes (especially when it is as expensive as it is... and that's not even counting the processing fees). Lastly, it's difficult to focus on film. There is no viewfinder. You have to create the image all in the camera. Because of this, you have to measure for focus with a tape measure and have a great AC that keeps everyone perfectly in focus.

We haven't had a chance to shoot film outside of class because of the limited availability of the SRIIs right now. However, the B section of 710 has been. I helped out on some of their shoots last week and took some behind the scenes pictures. You can see them using the 16mm SRII below.

While they were using the SRIIs, my section of the class got an assignment on digital. We were given three phrases (back alley, poison and broken glass) and were told to make three one-minute shorts involving them that were interconnected. My group was made up of myself, Michael Warshauer and Katy Lowe. We decided to make a short called Vamp-Off. The short would bring together three very different genres: classic horror, awkward comedy and cheesy infomercial.

A week before we shot, we went to Katy's to do lighting tests and test for black and white. You can see those test shots below.

Filming was fun but stressful. A lot of people showed up and basically had a party in the kitchen while we were filming. It was frustrating but what we got turned out fun. I wish we had done certain things differently and that we had had more time for certain sections but, you know, what's done is done.

Still, it was great to work again.

Katy interupted every shot I tried to take of Justin and Adam.

I made a lot of posters for a fake band called "The Backalleys." They appear in the background of every shot.

Here's the Vamp-Off product itself. I designed the cheesy logo for it.

You can watch Vamp-Off below.

That's it for now. More to come later when I get some free time.