November 08, 2005

Fall Colors in the NE and the Empire State Building

And the New York City Marathon. This week was a banner week for me doing new things (much to the chagrin of that part of me that was trying to get work done).

On Saturday I went for a hike in Chappaqua with Alix and Susan, two friends of mine from Pomona. It was a great escape from the city. And, judging by the colors, perfect timing. This was my first bona fide experience of being blown away by the fall colors. I have heard a lot about how great the leaves in New England are, but I really hadn't had the experience of seeing them firsthand until now. I was deluded into thinking that Utah's leaves compete (actually, I still think Utah's leaves compete against these. But these were pretty awesome.)

And then on Sunday morning I went to David's apartment in Fort Greene to watch the runners whiz by.

As I was watching the marathon, I got a call from my best friend from college, Daniel, aka the Danimal. He was in town from LA and wanted to hang out. We met up that evening and he took me to the top of the Empire State Building. His grandfather had designed it, so he had a pass that let us skip the lines and go straight to the top.

Posted November 8, 2005 12:59 AM. Categories: New Experiences , Week 9 | Permalink

Temporal Continuity in Editing

I enjoyed reading about directing a lot. It made the project we were working on this week feel a lot more like a professional project. Not that we really based very much of what we filmed on what we had read, but I at least felt more informed about what I was doing.

The reading made me want to do more experimentation with film, too. As we've been shooting this film, and as I've been reading about film directing the past few weeks, I've started to pay much more attention to how the editing of movies and TV shows is done. I'm kind of amazed to see how much of a rich visual language there is in television and movies that I was more or less unaware of until now. Of course, the flow should be seemless if done right (according to our readings).

Reading about (and thinking about) the issues involved with maintaining continuity and getting coverage has caused me to have a lot more respect than I did for directors. I realize now in a much more tangible way that there is a lot of planning that goes into getting a good shot. When we were filming we typically only used a single angle/range for every shot, although I would have liked to experiment with using multiple cameras or at least different takes with different angles to see how that can contribute to our film. It's becoming clear, though, that we are mounting a very ambitious project and multiple takes are a luxury for people not trying to get done work for 3 other classes.

The experience so far has made me really want to a) make my own feature-length film and b) star in one.

Here is a link to our pictures from the second day of shooting.
Day 2 of the Mime Shoot: I am not a mime.

Posted November 8, 2005 12:25 AM. Categories: Assignments , Reading Responses , Week 9 | Permalink