It Might Be Over Soon

As I repeatedly adjusted the lightening and focus, I thought about her story. I tried to imagine what she was like with her eclectic clothes and outspoken personality.

"I want to get a close up of the letters," Lauren said. As I moved the camera to and fro, capturing shots of the tan parchment, I began to read the small black letters.

I stopped briefly on one peculiar note and silently read the looping letters.

"It might be over soon."

 https://vimeo.com/195515870?ref=em-v-share

I feel it would be appropriate to share my experience as a filmmaker. This past semester I was in my first documentary class. Media Production.

For our final we were tasked with creating a short film of some kind. We had about two months to organize, shoot, and edit a five to twelve minuet film. At first I was to be the director because I wanted to turn one of my favorite articles into a movie.

However, scheduling conflicts caused us to go in a different direction. This turned out to be for the best.  One of my group members, Lauren, is a spoken word poet and we brought one of her poems to life. A few years ago her grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and Grom, as she was called, had passed away weeks before we starting filming.

 Lauren wrote an extremely sad and thoughtful piece that vividly described what her mother was going through. She performed it for us and instantly we wanted to make it a movie.

Our entire production took about two weeks. We had two days of shooting film at Lauren's grandmother's house. We tried to get as many shots as we could that captured Grom's true essence.

I was the cinematographer. It was all about lighting, depth perception, and focus.

The rest of the time we spend editing all of our shots or B-roll together. Lauren rewrote her poem into a script and she did an outstanding voice over.

We added the Bon Iver song we wanted to use from the beginning and thus 'It Might Be Over Soon' came into existence. 

And...Action!

This blog will take a deeper look into the world of film making. Most everyone loves to watch movies. It's a way for us to escape from reality for a good two hours.

However, I have always thought a lot more about the way a movie is constructed. The actors, the set designs, the costumes, the makeup, and all the things that make a film a film. It's all just fascinating to me and with this blog

I plan to use my journalistic skills to interview and learn from cinematic people. I hope to explain how scriptwriters, directors, and actors really consider the story that they're portraying.

Films are basically books brought to life. However, there are things directors or actors will do to further symbolize certain aspect of those stories.

So to concluded the first of many posts, I will act as your directer guiding you through the Reel Life.