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!