Shear Savannah

One of the classes I'm taking this summer quarter is Field Production. This class usually revolves around a project which the entire class chooses roles to work during the production. Most times, the class produces aa short film.

I am taking this class with a professor I had for my Producing class in the winter, Professor Meyer. During Producing he told us about the summer Field Production class in which he wanted to put together a pilot for a reality show taking place in Savannah.

We are going to be shooting a pilot revolving around the Kenneth James salon in town. There are two stories we will be following in the pilot; a look into the salon itself and the work the owner is doing to revitalize the area his business is located in.

One of the salon's former employees is the inspiration for the A story. She often showed up late for work and was usuallu hung over. Her marital problems spilled into the workplace, culminating in the police showing up at the salon due to a restraining order she had placed on her husband.

The employee has since left the salon, so we will be looking for someone to help recreate the situation. Since, as we all know, reality tv is usually more scripted. We will be recreating true events in a way that will not interfere with the business.

So, today in class we pre-interviewed the salon owner and one of the stylists in order to learn more about them and their personalities. By the end of the week we should have cast the crazy stylist, so we can move into preproduction!

Four months later...

... So, we have been kind of bad in keeping up our blog- but I promise! We have been doing fun stuff!

Most importantly, as I assume most of you know, Molly got a job! She is the choir teacher at Bartlett Middle School in Savannah. She teaches four chorus classes (southerners say chorus instead of choir) and four general music classes. It is the much more difficult than we expected but it is also rewarding and always entertaining to work with middle school students.

She had her first concert recently and her mom flew in to Savannah to enjoy the spring concert. The concert was combined with the band and had a "Summer at the Movies" theme. Songs her choir sang included Disney classics such as "You've Got A Friend in Me" and "Part of Your World" with some more contemporary movie songs such as "Smash Into You" and "Only Hope".



We also spent a nice long weekend in Rock Hill, South Carolina at the end of April. Molly's cousin Danny was celebrating his First Communion and we spent a few days with the family. On our first day in Rock Hill, we drove out to North Carolina to go ziplining! This is where you hang from a thin wire in a harness and swing down a hill for a couple hours... It took Molly a ittle nudging to get on, but after the first hill, we were all enjoying it immensely.

At the end of our weekend, we decided to take a quick day trip to Carrowinds- the Carolina's version of Cedar Point. We spent most of our time on the tamer rides since Molly's cousins were younger- which was more than fine with me! Molly, however, rode the new roller coaster "The Intimidator" which, she said was "the best roller coaster I had ever been on!"

School has been keeping me busy. Tomorrow is my first day of classes for the summer quarter. I am currently working on a project unrelated to school. It is a screenplay I have been writing based on an experience my dad had last fall. The screenplay revolves around three elderly sisters who "crash" a funeral home and cause havoc. I will be producing the movie and my friends Justin and Alex will be directing and DPing, respectively. We should have a promo video online soon, so I will be sure to post it on here when it is ready.

We've done a few fun things down in Savannah. Saint Patrick's Day is quite a big deal here. Our friends Alana and Justin have an apartment that was right on the parade route.

All of our friends arrived in the morning and we had a brunch along with an assortment of... celebratory refreshments.

We attempted to walk down to the park in the afternoon, but I sprained my ankle and had to sit and rest at the Thai takeout place we stopped at.

It was quite the adventure.

The summer has been great. We have made several trips to the beach and on one weekend, a bunch of our group rented a boat for an afternoon- which was a great time.

After a few hours on the boat, we decided to pull into a small bay and take a swim in the afternoon heat. We all dove into the water with the lifejackets from the boat and had a rowdy swim in the channel.

Not until we got back to the shore did we find out that the water we had been swimming in is the largest bull shark breeding waters on the east coast... Had we known, we may have been more selective with our swimming location.

The highlight of the trip, however, were the dozens of dolphins we saw swimming in the channels as well as hearing Molly shriek "LOOK A DOOOOLPHIN!!!!!!" every time we saw one.

Hilton Head Island is only about an hour away from Savannah, so we have made multiple trips in the past few weeks. Molly and I took a weekend trip for ourselves, since she had never been there before.

A few weeks later, her aunt and uncle spent a week in HHI so we went and spent the day at their condo. At the end of their trip was when Molly's mom came into town for the spring concert. She spent the day with her sister and Molly and I drove up in the evening to have dinner.

About a week ago, our friend Kristen's family shared a condo on the island and some of us went up for the night. Molly, myself, Kristen, Michael, Alex G and Alex H spent the day at the beach and spent the night in the condo. As much as I love Savannah, it is always nice to get out of the city and take a break.

Following the night on HHI, I went to Charleston with Alex G to help him shoot a wedding he was invited to. We had a three camera setup, which is why he needed another hand to shoot. We ended up shooting almost 60 gigs of video, which just about filled up my computer's hard drive.

Since coming back to Savannah, I have been doing a lot of work on my upcoming project, "In Memory of Henry Tucker". The script is almost locked. We are having a read through with some potential actresses on Tuesday and the promo video will hopefully be shot within the next week.

Anyway, after that ramble. Molly and I are going to be back in Michigan this upcoming week, June 29th through July 11th- so there will hopefully be a post or two from MI!

Valentines Day in Savannah

Christoph and I had our first wonderful holiday here in Savannah, Valentines Day! We celebrated in numerous ways and knowing us, this included lots of yummy food.

On Valentines day morning I hid some dark chocolate m&ms in Christoph's dresser drawer for our first surprise. We spent the morning hanging out in the apartment and right after I got out of the shower my beautiful flowers were delivered from a local florist. It came in a large red glass vase and there are white daisy's, red roses, and red and pink carnations. They are the most beautiful flowers ever!

For lunch I planned a surprise picnic in forsyth park. I marinated fresh mozzerella and bought artichokes and olives. My theme was 'antipasta in the park' so we also had steak, asparagus and crusty focaccia bread with olive oil and parmesan cheese to dip it in. For dessert I made chocolate covered marshmellows instead of chocolate covered strawberries which Christoph does not like. Then we packed everything up and walked over to the park. It was a beautiful day for a picnic it was 70 degrees and sunny and being a Michigan girl I still cannot believe how beautiful the weather here can be.

After lunch Christoph had just one class that day and I took a nap on the couch then he came home and we watched a romantic movie! Well I watched "Night's in Rodanthe" and Christoph did homework and tried to ignore the movie which is thought was boring! I guess the film major just needs more entertainment than a sappy love story. But since it was Valentines Day he was sweet and did not laugh at me when I cried at all the sappy parts. Then it was time for the main event dinner!

I had gone shopping with our friends Katy and Kristen, and bought a cute new dress for the occasion. It was black on bottom and the top is pink and shiny, it sort of looks like a shirt and skirt combo. Christoph looked equally spiffy in his nice khaki pants and his white and pink striped shirt. Needless to say we were "that couple" if you will. And after all of that effort to look so nice we forgot to have our friends take a picture.

For dinner we went to Garibaldi's Cafe in City Market. For those of you that don't know, City Market, is an two clock area of Savannah that is walking area over and it has many nice restaurants and touristy shops. Garibaldi's Cafe is an Italian Seafood restaurant and it is my new favorite restaurant. We started with Christoph's favorite calamari with a sweet apricot sauce. Then my entree was grouper and shrimp in a rich sauce over parmesan risotto and with zuccinni on the side. Christoph's dish was a beautiful bass fillet filled with seafood of all kinds, lobster, shrimp, and scallops. Then on the side he had mussles and clams and his was served in a red sauce with spinach. I thought I had dish envy when I saw his come out but honestly I thought mine tasted better and he thought his tasted better so it worked out great for all of us! For dessert we shared a decedant creme brulee.

After dinner on our way home we stopped in at our friend Alex's house. It was so nice to spend the whole day together but we are both such social people we needed time with our friends. Luckily he did not mind us stopping by and everyone was there including Kristen, Katy and Micheal. Overall I would say ur first holiday down south was an overwhelming success and I cannot wait to see what the next holiday will bring.

-Molly

Only In the South...

... can you enjoy the best Thai food in town next to a gun store.

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Film 701 Film Project!

So, one of the classes I am taking this quarter is Film 710, Film and Digital Media Production. The basic premise of this class is to learn the technical aspects of film making, specifically the role of a cinematographer (lights and camera).

At the beginning of the week we had to turn in the final cut of our first/midterm project. For this project, we had to shoot on film instead of on a digital format. I worked in a group with four friends with whom I was in last fall's 500-level classes, so we had all worked together before. Out of the four of us, only one had actually worked on film before, so we knew this may be kind of a rocky production.

The biggest challenge in working with film is that what you see through the eye piece is NOT what you are going to see as your final product. You have to measure the distance between the camera and your subject to set the camera to keep them in focus, you can't expose the film to light, you have to deal with cleanliness of the lenses, aperture plate, etc... the list goes on.

So, we each switched roles acting as director, cinematographer, gaffer and key grip for one of the four scenes we filmed for our project. As you will see, we were definitely in a new element but as the films progressed, we were able to correct our mistakes and each scene definitely improved on the other.

All of the following scenes are based on embarrassing stories that have happened to myself, Kristen, Alex or Rachael (the production team), and Alex and I took these stories and adapted them for the screen:



We have just begun work on our final project, which we can shoot on digital! So, stay tuned for that next month!

Poltergeist!

So, while I was in Savannah on my own last fall there were a few strange occurrences that would happen to me. Next to the bed is a bookcase with books on it, obviously. A few times throughout the fall I would go to bed (with all the books on the shelf) and wake up the next morning to find three of them lined up at the foot of the bed. I told my friends about it, and they thought I was nuts- or sleepwalking. Molly also thought the same thing...

... So a few weeks ago, Molly spent her first night alone in the apartment. Being a little freaked out, she triple checked everything and knew everything was in its place. Low and behold, the next morning she found that one of her heavy textbooks was moved from the shelf to the floor at the end of the bed...

We decided that the ghost only makes himself known when there is one person in the apartment. However, today we noticed that a drawer we have been keeping in that same shelf moved too! It was inside the top shelf of the bookcase and the last time either of us touched it was two nights ago when I took a jar of Vick's Vaporub out of it... this afternoon we noticed it was sitting ONTOP of the bookcase! Hmm...

... So, what do you all think? Do we have a ghost in the apartment? Or just two very over-active imaginations?

- Christoph

Sunday afternoon in the park

So last Sunday was a beautiful day here in Savannah. It was a high of 75 and partially sunny so Christoph and I decided to go out for a walk. We drove to Skidaway Island and visited the Georgia state park there. Now first off all let me say for the record that I usually have a good sense of decoration however the park map we were given left something to be desired.

When we entered the state park I asked the park ranger to direct us to the path and for a map. Surprisingly she admitted that as a worker at this park she has never been on the walking path. So we parked in front of what we assumed to be the interpretation center and the park ranger had said that this path was right behind the interpretation center.

Now our first sign that we were in the wrong place should have been that all of the other cars were parked on the opposite side of the parking lot. So Christoph and I took off towards this building and walked around in the brush looking for a path. At this time I should also note that we both were a little over excited about the warm weather and I was in a sundress and sandals and Christoph was in shorts and flip-flops. Not exactly good footwear for marching around off trail.

After we determined that the path was not behind this building (still under the assumption it was the interpretive center) We consulted the map and continued to walk around the parking lot AWAY FROM ALL OF THE OTHER CARS. Anyways after about 20 minutes spent wandering around the parking lot it occured to us that perhaps the building we parked in front of was not the interpretive center but that maybe it was the building that everyone else had parked in front of.

Finally we were on the path and it was beautiful. The path was mostly through marshlands and it went over several rivers where we looked for crabs. I could not believe how pretty it was with the spanish moss hanging off of the trees. I kept feeling like I was in the great movie ferngully mixed with the secret garden. One of the things I cannot believe about living down here is how beautiful everything is. My favorite part of the walk was that on our way out we saw a gecko! Yes like the Geico one!

We had a lovely walk and intend to go back again and hopefully not waste our time wandering around in the nicely paved but ugly parking lot.

-Molly

First four weeks

Hello,

   Welcome to our blog. This entry serves the purpose of catching everyone up on what has happened here in Savannah since the big move!

  On January 1st, 2011 Christoph, Lori (Molly's mom), Molly and a lot of clothes piled into Molly's Hyundai Elantra and headed south. After a stop in Pennsylvania to visit Molly's Grandma and Aunt they finally made it to Savannah. Lori spent 2 days in Savannah and helped us reorganize the apartment. After many trips to Home Depot and a delicious dinner at the Pink House Restaurant, it was time for her to go.

  The first week here in Savannah, Molly worked on starting two applications for a job as a public choir teacher at Bartlett Middle School and for an organization that places teachers in private schools. She met many difficulties in her job pursuit and had to wait for paper work from Albion College before finishing the applications. Christoph went back to school at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design), he is taking three classes this semester, Sound Design, Producing for Film and Television, and, Film and Digital Media Production. His classes have started out with a bang and already he has written and filmed four short movies with classmates on film. 

  One of our favorite activities here in Savannah is walking! Our apartment is just 5 blocks from a large park (Similar in look to the lawn of Central Park) we have taken many walks around Forsyth Park, often stopping for Startbucks at the cafe. We also enjoy walking downtown and viewing the many squares, Christoph loves to tell anyone who comes what movie scenes were filmed on what square.

  During the second week in Savannah we threw a couple of dinner parties. We have already used the fondue set from Christoph's parents and Molly has had lots of fun impressing people with her cooking skills, as well as shopping for serving plates and other things to decorate the table. One of the greatest discoveries made during week two was a little restaurant down the street called "Sammy Green's". Everything at this restaurant is amazing! They make sliders (think small sandwiches on hamburger buns) for $2 as well as tacos, hotdogs, and amazing sides such as mashed sweet potatoes. So far Molly has eaten there 3 times and Christoph has twice, this is going to become a favorite place of ours.

  During week 3 Christoph's class load picked up. He and his group began to film the short movies, one of which in our apartment! Molly went to three private schools to pass out resumes and look for subbing jobs. So far she has subbed twice at Memorial Day School. At the end of week three Christoph's beloved Grandfather passed away and Christoph and Molly flew back to Michigan. It was wonderful to see family and friends but unfortunate that they were home for such a sad reason (and on such a cold weekend!)

  Week 4 has been the best week yet! Christoph went straight back to work on Sunday afternoon filming until late into the evening. But then we celebrated being back in town by throwing a taco dinner party with homemade mango salsa! Christoph was busy filming and studying for most of that week so Molly went and signed them up at the local YMCA and subbed on Thursday and Friday for a kindergarten class. On Saturday we celebrated the long weeks end by going to the farmers market (in the park by our home), working out at the Y, and ending with a fun date at the Melting Pot.

   You are now mostly caught up on our lives. Look for the next entry on our walk in the ferngully forest (a.k.a. The Skidaway Island Georgia State Park) and our ghost encounters!

~ Christoph and Molly