For the new year, I’m going to be blogging a lot of filmmaking stories. This quarter I’m enrolled in Location Sound, Advanced Post-Production, and Directing the Narrative; all very hands-on, practical classes. This in addition to the 3 senior thesis films and multiple narrative projects that I’m attached to. I’ll have a lot of fun pictures and anecdotes, so keep an eye out.
My first assignment for Directing The Narrative was a self-portrait. One of those infuriatingly liberating projects, I was allowed to do anything I wanted to portray myself. It could be abstract, funny, showcase past work, or whatever. As long as I did something I would get an A.
Since I’ve always done pretty light or humorous stuff, I decided to go the artsy, film schooly, pretentious route this time (had to do it at least once while I’m here!).
I started gathering all of my shit, locked a (damn fine) cinematographer, and visited Goodwills***, all the while trying to figure out all the symbolic type shit I wanted to include. I picked a song… “Capital G” by Nine Inch Nails, to play off of my name (George Reynolds Brown IV). Most of the imagery I was conceiving of fit the tone of the song, and I figured the rhythm would lend itself to interesting cuts. Even more wonderful; the song is about Bush, and we would be presenting this project on the 20th- it was providence.
The night before shooting I got about 3 hours of sleep, and woke up at 8:00am for class. My schedule ran as follows…
Location Sound: 8:00am – 10:30am
Advanced Post-Production: 11:00am – 1:30am
Directing The Narrative: 2:00pm – 4:30pm
Equipment Pick-Up: 5:00
Pre-Shooting Errands: 5:30 – 7:00
Set-Up: 7:00 – 8:00
We started rolling somewhere near 8:30pm. My friend was in town till midnight, so we shot a lot of his stuff and got him out of there. My lady was next up on the list (she had filming to do in the morning), and we got all of her stuff shot after midnight-dinner.
My cinematographer and I shot the bulk of the piece after Ivey left for home, and we finished up around 7:00am. We napped until 9:30am, returned equipment at 10:00am, and then I went back for Residence Life work…. a long fucking 2 days!
The footage was great, it cut together great, and the presentation went very well. I’ve got everything finalized for upload to the internet, and my next entry will contain the finished product for all to see. More pictures from the shoot are below, and I’ll see you next time.
Thanks for reading!
rennbrown@gmail.com
twitter: @RennBrown
