Sheng Ri Kuai Le, Tom

Last night, we had a big birthday bash for Tom at my apartment. A lot of Chinese people came over and we all ate a lot of food. The food display was pretty interesting- it was a giant combination of American and Chinese food. It was all presented buffet style and it seemed to go over well.

We all spent a few hours eating, socializing and getting to know each other better. Then we brought out the cake. That's when things got... well... a little disasterous.

I took a lot of pictures (a little bit of video) so I've decided to make this post mostly just images with a little bit of commentary thrown in. So I hope you enjoy glimpses of our crazy American / Chinese birthday bash from last night.

Halloween bowls... definitely my touch.

This is Sue. She's a really nice girl.

I really don't know.

Guess who prepared these? This guy.

This is Liz and Alice. They are nice girls. They helped us prepare a lot of the food for the party.

Staring contest.

The man of the hour.

Cool shirt.

Heart picture? Heart picture.

Rodrigo. And a lot of food.

Long was looking pretty bad ass here.

This guy was cool. He knew English very well too. He was the only one at the party not in ESL classes.

This guy was being attacked by others when this picture was taken. I'm not really sure why.

While the cake was being lit, I decided to take a little video of the festivities. You can see the video below. It's nothing special... just a glimpse into the atmosphere of the party and us singing "Happy Birthday" to Tom. Notice the harmonica in the video... the guy playing it was playing old Southern folk songs on it all night. It was so awesome.

Okay, this was the point when things got a little stressful for me. This is all the result of another cultural gap. Apparently, when you have a birthday party in China, the birthday boy gets birthday cake smeared all over him. And, sometimes, cake gets thrown at guests / smeared all over them as well.

I was unaware of this. So, you can imagine my surprise when, in literally a minute flat, my apartment went from spotless to being covered in cake. I mean covered.

Anyone who knows me from home knows that I am obsessive-compulsive. I've been medically diagnosed with OCD and, even though I've gotten treatment and am a lot better now, this kind of situation is literally my worst nightmare.

I think I handled it well. I mostly just stood there and stared at people. I don't remember talking to any guests at all after the cake fight. I was kind of in my own world.

Luckily for me, everyone cleaned up the mess pretty quick. Girls got out brooms and mops and went to town. Still, that didn't stop me from going to town on the entire apartment for three hours after everyone left. If the place wasn't spotless before everyone got there, it sure was after.

Anyways, in my bewildered state, I actually managed to get a few photos of the cake massacre. Not many... but a few. You can see them below.

Yeah. I hate this. A lot.

Anyways, that was our party. I wish all the stuff with the cake didn't happen but it's alright I guess. The place is clean now. But man... when it happened... I guess you could say I was beside myself.

Another lesson learned? Yes, I believe so. But really... I'm tired of learning lessons. No more lessons for a week please.

Acting for the Camera

Today in my Technical Elements of Film Production class we got to do a shoot in which we basically recreated the short The Lunch Date. We split into two groups of six, assigned production jobs, scouted for a location and got to work. My team ended up using my Canon T2i for our shooting camera so, as we were setting up, my classmate Justin Andrews and I snapped a few behind the scenes pictures. You can enjoy them below.

This is my tripod and Barry's camera rig attached to it. It was a little cumbersome at first but it ended up being good for recording sound.

Kristen and Rachel were 1st and 2nd ADs today. This is them working on some pre-visualization before the shoot.

This is Justin. He was camera operator for the shoot today.

Kurt worked as our director for the shoot.

Here is Kurt working on story boards before the shoot started.

Here is Adam Tuckey, our fearless sound man / boom operator. My favorite point of the shoot was a comment he made to Kurt after some of his vocal directions were picked up on Adam's mic during a take.

The director and the ADs work on the pre-visualization process.

Adam tries to figure out the camera rig. At least, that's what I think he was doing.

Katy was one of the actors today. She had a lot of fun before the camera started to roll.

I was also an actor today. I prefer to be behind the camera but it was nice to fill a different production role for once.

I've included two production stills of Katy and I in scenes from the shoot below.

Overall, it was a fun day. We had some issues getting the right sound equipment for the T2i and, because of that, we really didn't have as much time as I wished we would have for the shoot. Things were pretty hectic once we actually started shooting but, after looking at some of the clips, things turned out pretty well visually. Hopefully, when we are done editing the piece together, we will be happy with it.

Still, it was a fun exercise and a good learning experience.

Plastic Flavored Pizza is Bad for You

A bit of a disaster today.

Last night, around midnight, I was going to bed. I went to the bathroom right before I did and I noticed my roommate Long in the kitchen. He was setting up a full size pizza to put in the oven. At midnight.

Long has never used a oven before so I told him to make sure to put the pizza on a oven tray before putting it in. Through blurred vision (I wasn't wearing my glasses as I was about to go to bed) I saw him pick up a tray that seemed very similar in size and shape to the oven tray we used the other day. I gave him a nod and went on to the bathroom and then to bed.

This morning me and roommate Rodrigo woke up at 6:30 am to get ready for our 8 am classes. While we were in the kitchen eating breakfast, Rodrigo asked me if I had seen his tray. I told him that I thought Long had used it the night before to cook a pizza in the oven.

Rodrigo froze and I saw his eyes widen.

"That tray was plastic...." he said.

It was about this point that my own eyes widened. Slowly, we opened up the oven to find quite a horrific scene: the plastic tray was ingrained to the top rack of the oven and had melted down all through the thing. Long's pizza was no where to be found.

I'll be honest; we were pretty frantic. For while, we thought we were going to have to pay for a whole new oven. The inside of the thing looked awful. We weren't sure what you had to do to fix something like this.

At this point, we filed a maintenance request and then separated for class. As I left for my busy day, lots of questions filled my head. Why didn't Long wake us up when the tray melted? Where was the pizza... had he actually eaten it? And how much was I going to have to pay to get this fixed?

As the day went by, I made phone calls to my RA and residence life, trying to figure out how to fix all of this. As it turns out, Residence Life wasn't too concerned. They just told us to clean it up ourselves and let them know if there were anymore problems with the oven.

I arrived back at the apartment around 5 to find that Rodrigo had already gotten most of the plastic out of the oven. We still have a little left that hopefully we will get out tomorrow. Shortly after I got home, Long arrived and told us his story. He said that lots of smoke erupted out of the oven when all this happened but, for reasons I still don't understand, he didn't wake us up.

And that pizza.... where did it go? Well, as it turns out, Long had been keeping it in his bathroom. He brought it out to show us. It had one giant bite in it. Yeah, he still tried to eat the thing. He said it tasted pretty bad.

I took some pictures of the aftermath of all of this that you can enjoy below.

Here is Long posing with the destroyed piece of plastic tray (or as he was saying, his "art").

Here is the damn pizza that was responsible for all of this mayhem. Notice the bite Long took out of it.

And here is our oven post all the plastic being taken out of it. As you can see, there's still a little left on the bottom that we need to get out.

So overall, it's been a interesting / stressful / strange day. Lesson learned? Um, yeah. I guess.

"Damn the man. If it ain't broke, break it."

I had to bring my Canon EOS Rebel T2i to class today to use so, while I was there, I decided to take a few pictures of what film school looks like for everyone back at home.

This is Hamilton Hall. It is located at the corner of Indian Street and M.L.K. Jr. Boulevard and is the main home for the Film and Television Department for SCAD.

This is the board for my Technical Elements of Film Production class. If you look closely, you will see the major positions on a filmmaking crew mapped out. This is left over from our first day of class.

This particular class is set in the studio pictured at the top of this article. I can't tell you how crazy it was to show up on Monday morning at 7:30 am and walk into this place. Definitely not the classroom I'm used to. But I love it in this room. We've had a lot of fun doing the little we have done in here.

You can't make a movie without lights. The majority of this class has focused on lighting and how to control the camera's sensitivity to light. It's a very important aspect of filmmaking and has been very useful (and slightly difficult) to learn about so far.

This is used to set up lights on the roof. We haven't done any of this yet. It looks kind of scary.

More of the studio. Just reminding you all that I have class in here. And that's crazy.

This is Christoph setting up his handheld camera before class. He's a pretty nice guy and seems to have a lot to offer to the class.

This is Kurt showing Adam his Canon XH-A1 (the same camera I shot a lot of my films on and which I currently use to record sound).

I'm pretty sure this was from the point in time when everyone was trying to get their iris set so their camera reached a level 5. It's kind of hard to explain. It was a very confusing moment.

More of the melding of the minds.

Justin working the Panasonic Pro AG-HVX200. He was pretty quick at learning this camera.

Kurt hooking up his Canon XH-A1 to one of the school's massive tripods.

My team's Panasonic Pro AG-HVX200. I believe we were about to set our white balance here.

A front view of my team's Panasonic Pro AG-HVX200. It's a pretty piece of equipment.

This is Barry. He is our teacher for Technical Elements of Film Production. He's a very active and intense guy. I really like him. He's big on us getting in the field and getting our hands dirty and that's what I want. Since this class is at 8 am in the morning, the quick and furious energy of it really serves to wake me up.

This is a quick picture of some architecture around the riverfront area of Savannah. My film building is right on the river so this is a glimpse of what we see when we go and sit out on the picnic tables for our very brief lunch.

I didn't really get to take any pictures from my other two film classes. They are not as active as my first one so I'm not sure pictures would have done them justice. However, I'm convinced I need to film Dr. Chaney from Practical Elements of Film Production by the end of the quarter. He went on a tirade about the story structure of Star Wars: A New Hope that lasted fifteen minutes that was really funny and beyond brilliant. The guy is scatter brained and full of energy. He's really a character. So, hopefully, I can get a video of him in action one day.

Anyways, I hope these pictures (and words) help bring you guys a little more insight into this new education that I am seeking.

Alice House Living

Hey everyone.

If you're expecting to see pictures of beautiful, outside Savannah, it's not in this post. I've done a lot of walking through the historic district but I didn't have my camera with me. I was mostly trying to take it all in. So, due to that, and the fact that I've been super busy / stressed, random pictures I've taken around my apartment will have to do for this first Savannah / film school blog post.

This is my apartment. It is called The Alice House and is located on 455 Montgomery Street. It really is incredible. It has three bedrooms, a utility room, kitchen, living room, hallway and two bathrooms.

It's so big I don't know what to do with it. I'm still working on decorating it / organizing my room (which I don't have a good picture of yet).

This is Long Li. He's been in America ten days now. He likes Bruce Lee, American movies / food and using the f-word. He's one of the coolest people I've ever met. I've spent a few hours now in the past few days talking to Long. Every time we talk, there is a decent communication gap. He doesn't always understand me and I don't always understand him. But I feel like we both always learn something each time we talk.

He just wondered into my room a few hours ago and we talked about girls, roller coasters, rock music, Harry Potter and what it is to be brave.

I love this guy. It's only been four days and already I feel like I've learned so much from him. Looking forward to the rest of the year.

This is Tom. His Chinese name is Jingwei Dang. Much like Long, he also has only been in America ten days. He is a little shyer than Long (who often wanders out into the night by foot in search of a pool table to play on) but is equally as great. I've talked to Tom just as much as Long. I think he is easier to understand and he seems to pick up on things faster. He's a really nice guy.

Tom has taught me a lot about China and how oppressive the living there can be (though he still loves it because it is his home). The Chinese government controls a lot of the media that its citizens have access to. For example, they only allow twenty American movies into the country a year and sites like Google, Facebook and Youtube are all banned from China's internet.

So I can't say how happy I was to help Tom and Long set up Facebook accounts yesterday with my friend Erich when we finally got our internet set up.

I'm excited to be living with Tom and spending more time being his roommate.

My last roommate is Rodrigo Uribe. He was born in Mexico but lived most of his life in Cleveland, Ohio. Rodrigo, like Tom and Long, is a really cool guy. He's the only other guy in the house who speaks fluent English other than me so it's nice to have him around as a solid for communication. He is studying visual effects (such as CGI) and how to use that in film. It's a pretty exciting field. I'm eager to see what he can come up with and possibly work with him.

The other guy you see in the picture above is Erich Burchfield. Erich isn't a roommate but is a friend Rodrigo and I met at orientation. He is also in visual effects and is an interesting guy. He was one of the first people here in Savannah to really befriend me and make this giant transition a little easier. So I'm thankful to him for that.

Well that is it for now. I promise to have more updates soon with actual pictures of Savannah. It's really a beautiful and amazing place. My life has already changed a lot in the past few days. I hope I have the time to help you see how and what I'm learning here through both pictures and writing.

More to come soon.