One month to go

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This past Saturday was my third and final year in charge of Frog Baby Film Festival. Technically, I have been working on the event for four years. My freshman year I was on the committee, and got my first taste of the event.

The following year, the first time I was in charge of the event, I knew I wanted to amp up everything. I had even talked the TCOM department into flying a speaker for the event! We had great food, great films, and an awesome speaker.

My committee and our speaker, 2010.

The following year, my committee grew and we embellished the event into a cool safari theme and brought even better food. The number of submissions doubled this year (nearing 30).

The award winners and I, 2011

And finally, my last and final year we have our new record number of submissions, 50. Let me tell you, it took a long while to catalogue all of these films and then compile them into five judging packets.

Over the years the event has grown, and my committee has gotten more ambitious. This year one of our committee members created the poster, which received many compliments. They also decided on a 1920s gangster theme. We even were reported in the BSU student paper!

The event went by so fast, and I was filled with so many emotions. Everything went really well, no problems at all. So many people love the films and loved the event--people laughed, cheered, and were moved by them.

I only hope that whoever takes on the task next helps the event to continue to grow. It's been a privilege to have the opportunity to be in charge of the event. It's something I'll definitely miss this time next year!

Three months until graduation. It's go time.

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I try to keep this blog reflective of my production work. However, most of the time I get busy with production and am not able to document it as efficiently as I plan. So, with that in mind, I'd like to start fresh and keep you informed on my journey to find a job within my passion.

First of all, the past semester I worked on two large projects. The first being Indiana Tourism. I created a spot for Conner Prairie which I wont be able to post here until May. However, here are some production pics. Keep in mind I tweet a lot when on a shoot, so if you want to keep updated with what I'm working on follow me.

Working on a dolly shot.

Setting up to shoot some soldiers-It was a very cold morning!

I also had the opportunity to work as a producer on a experimental documentary titled Made in Indiana. This was a really great experience to work in such a professional capacity.

We shot with a RED Epic, shooting slow motion at 300 frames per second.  The theme of the documentary focuses on moments that make Indiana unique.

This was a blacksmith and ceramic potter we shot with. He had a interesting workshop set up in his home and hundreds of different metal art pieces and ceramic pieces.

At one location, shooting outdoor scenes with horses and dogs, there was some adorable puppies! We didn't have time to shoot them, but we did have time to play with them. The family just started breeding and this was their first litter.

Overall it was a great experience, filled with problems and chaos that called for a great deal of problem solving.

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The Job Hunt.

I know I shouldn't be panicked, but at moments I am. Most production jobs are not posted until March, yet I am very adamant about applying to as many as possible early on. So far I've used a variety of sites such as Production Hub, Mandy, and specific company sites like Time Warner Careers.

However, last week, I got the idea to directly contact some smaller independent companies. I started off with companies in Texas. I grew up there and miss the state dearly. I was surprised that I actually received a couple responses- even ones doing production and wanting to use my Spanish skills!

There are also other ones, like a couple companies in Georgia I am extremely interested. My outlook is that I will go where ever my career takes me. I just hope it's somewhere south with no winter. Yet I have found some great jobs in Michigan and Washington DC that would be great.

The whole ordeal is somewhat daunting, not knowing where I will be this summer. But I am confident that I will find a great job pertaining to my passions and skills.

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As far as projects for this semester, I'm continuing work with my internship. At first, I thought it would be a boring topic-entrepreneurship. It has turned out to be quite the opposite. I've really enjoyed understanding more about the field, and understanding design thinking. I'm also building a website for them--I'll post a link when it is officially launched. We have a big shoot tomorrow and I'm getting all the equipment ready.

Other than that, I've been helping some friends with short films here and there. My goal is to finish a short 5-10 minute film before I graduate. I have a really great idea, just need to get the script written out and assemble a crew.

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With that, I leave you with this recipe of a delicious steak with roasted red pepper relish. Cooking continues to be a passion of mine.

Recipe (for two portions)

2 Ribeye steaks (you can choose other steaks too)

1 Red Bell Pepper

1/2 Red Onion

2 tbsp Butter

1 Garlic Clove

1tsp Basil

Olive oil

salt and pepper

Steak and Chop marinade

Marinate the steak overnight in a marinade of your choosing (I used steak and chop). Use a cast iron skillet and use a high heat on the stove. Turn your oven to 350 degrees. You want the skillet hot before you add the steaks. Add the butter and swirl it around, then add the steaks. Sear the steaks, flipping them over on all sides. You should not cook them longer than 2-3 minutes. Angle the pan and use a spoon to get excess butter and pour on the steaks. Put the whole skillet in the oven and cook for 10-12 minutes, depending on how done you'd like the steak. Cut up the peppers and onion. In a different skillet add olive oil and garlic and heat to medium heat. This flavors the oil. Add the peppers, onion,basil, and salt and pepper and stir occasionally. Once the onions are translucent, take off the heat. Serve the steak with the red peppers on top and enjoy.

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Favorite Internet Video (movie) of the week:

Porcelain Unicorn

The filmmakers were given a couple lines of dialogue, and the prop of the unicorn and this is what they created. To be honest, I teared up. This film is so simple yet conveys many emotions. An eerie since of nostalgia and the strong symbol of the unicorn. This short piece keeps the viewer's attention the entire time. At first wondering what is inside the box, to what's in the cupboard.

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What's crazy about filmmaking is that it's rapid growth into other industries. Game trailers used to be short tidbits of game play with some flashy animation here and there. Now, in the gaming industry, it has become normal to have live action video game trailers.

This trailer for Deus Ex had me thinking it was a movie at one point. I love the concept. Viewers are asked to go to the website which is even more believing. This trailer in combination with the Dead Island trailer use cinematic elements of conveying story to persuade the buyer. I can't wait to see more of these live action trailers and in addition to films based on video games like Halo and Mass Effect

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Production work, production work, production work. Where are you? It has been a crazy rollercoaster going through boughts of lots of jobs and no jobs. I was going to work on the film Seven Below Zero shooting in Cincinnati, but had too many schedule conflicts with school starting to participate. I real let down.

However, this past Thursday and Friday I was an extra on the film Parker, starring Jason Statham. It was hot and we were shooting at the fair but it's safe to say I had a great time. I only got the chance to talk with the local crew and not the main crew. They were only shooting in Columbus for two days before going to Louisana to shoot the rest. I wish I could've gone with them.

mmmm...Fisher dolly...

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And today, I will leave you with a tour of the UP house in Utah.

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Favorite Movie of the Week:

Catfish

A very interesting look at the virtual world, Catfish wasn't what I expected. I expected a faux documentary horror/thriller type and it wasn't. It's an interesting look at the virtual worlds we create. It reminds me of the opposite of We Live in Public. Both, however, seem to be experiments exploring our new frontier.

I would reccomend seeing it. Makes you wonder how many people are really real, even your friends. We act differently than we woul in real life, here on the internet.

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This piece by Hans Zimmer is very much overused. But I feel as thought it proves a point-Music drives direction and breathes life into films. Take a look at any horror. Take the music out and it's not scary at all. Music creates an emotional connection and is tied to our memories.

Speaking of music, have you heard of Spotify? It's a new music software much like Pandora or Grooveshark. Instead of searching for a song, or creating playlists off a song you like, you can download or create your own playlist. The interface looks a lot like itunes and it is currently free. It also links to your itunes playlists if you have any. Like Pandora, you can pay extra for unlimited, but a free account gives you 20 hours a month. I encourage you to scope it out- so far I've loved it.

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Now I will leave you with a word from my dream employer.

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Favorite Movie of the Week:

Tree of Life

Unique and fresh. This film still has me thinking, and wanting to see it again. The visuals are absolutely stunning spiralling deeper into questions about life and faith. The music is mesmorizing and enchanting. It primarily stays around a family in the 50s and follows the oldest son. It shows how life progresses from innocence to disillusionment.

However, this film is not for everyone. When I saw it the people behind me died laughing once it ended and shouted "finally!". This movie has a specific audiences. It's quite. I would go in with no expectections and an open mind to truely enjoy it. At times it's remarkable how you, the viewer, begin to feel so small in the grand scheme of things. A couple minutes in I was a little confused, but then as the visuals pounded through my eyes and into my heart I began to relax and understand.

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I did not go see Transformers 3. I understand that the visual effects are incredibly impressive, but without a compelling story, I don't see the  reason to pay money to see it. Also the above proves that they took footage from another film and resused this.

While this clip has many views, the common audience fails to realize just how often Hollywood does this. I showed you the deterorating fox in the previous post. Hollywood always uses stock footage. You think for every airplane lifting off scene they went to the airport and shot it? No way. Or people walking on the street in a montage? Nope. It's because of the one thing that drives Hollywood: money. It's cheaper to pay a coulple grand for some stock footage than to get a whole team and go shoot it. The nature of the business as always.

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I am waiting to hear back regarding a production job that starts very soon. Once I know more, I will report back.

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Favorite Movie of the Week:

No Reservations

Wow that trailer is pretty cheesy-especially at the end. Don't let that fool you, No Reservations may not be the best movie ever, but the subtle elements make it the real gem. Abigail Breslin's performance is wonderful, and gets you emotionally involved quick. There is one moment in the movie where Aaron Eckhart's character somehow persuades the little girl to eat. There really isn't any dialogue here, but the story relies on the actions- meaning some pretty great writing.

This movie is predictable and the story won't resonate like a Pixar movie, but I think it's interesting to study what'd going on when there is no dialogue spoken. That's where the true story lies.

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Speaking of Pixar....

BRAVE!!!! I am very excited for the dark piece of film. Originally it was set to release this Christmas, but has then since been pushed back. I hope that this film puts Pixar back on the map following their first flop Cars 2.

However, I saw Cars 2 this past Friday with low expectations. I walked out having enjoyed the film. It was a fun summer popcorn movie. Definitely not Pixars best, and not a movie I'd purchase, but I had fun.

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What. A. Disaster. Final Cut Pro X has no use for me as a editor. No custom sequence settings, no multicam, no audio or video tracks, no time codes in the viewer, no opening old files, and so many other failures. To be honest, I've never touched iMovie because it always looked more confusing than FCP to me. This new "hip" interface is awful. The only thing I like is that it's darker and not wicked bright colored light grey. That and that there is no rendering. I don't mind learning a new interface or software, but if that software cannot do the functions I need it to, then it's worthless.

I had Adobe Premiere in high school and liked it for the most part. I'm pretty bummed to have to go back to it now. I'm sure many professionals will be turning away from FCP, or remain using older versions. Films like The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, which was edited on FCP-- I'm sure the editors won't be using it again.

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Favorite Movie of the Week:

Repo Men (2010)

Instead of watching the trailer like I normally put, I want you to watch this fight scene. I know it's not a great quality but it's the best I could find.  Repo Men is about the future where artificial organs are used but extremely expensive. Many people can't make payments, so the company has to repossess the organs. This movie is very bloody and some parts really make you cringe. The fight scene above I noticed was a subtle nod to the film Old Boy, the original fight scene shown below. Like old boy, the main character in Repo Men fights with a hammer and does get beat up pretty bad.

With all the blood that this movie has, they do a pretty good job with the action sequences. I did notice several CGI blood splatters that took me out of the movie at times. This movie has an exciting idea, I'm just not so sure it was completely executed the way they wanted it to.

Repo Men is slightly predictable and has a somewhat weak story in the beginning. But things heat up fast. The end has an interesting twist that I enjoyed and over all was a fun movie. However, I think the character of the wife wasn't established well and didn't understand her negativity.

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Last week I got the chance of working as an extra again for Liberal Arts and got to know the crew even more. I befriended many of them and I'm hoping to work with them on set. I will be on set again tomorrow as an extra.

Speaking of extras, I went to Pittsburgh this weekend for the Magnus Rex casting call. If you don't know what this movie is, then you are obviously not on the Internet much. I feel like I've seen stuff everywhere for this movie. I'm very excited at the opportunity to work on it.

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This week, I leave you with the following piece

Two photographers get stuck in the Dallas-Ft.Worth airport and decided to do some shenanigans. This is a copy- the original video was taken down.

Phew! These past couple of weeks have been so busy. I'm ready to rest up!

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Favorite (Music video) of the week:

E.T. by Katy Perry

1) I know this video is not new, and was released a couple weeks ago. 2) I do not like Katy Perry. However, this music video has incredibly powerful visuals. I love the color scheme and their creativity to make Katy an "alien". I think they experimented with new ideas. One part I notice she had her skin with a pattern that moved. Almost like light emitted textiles on a shirt. I think this creates new ideas for aliens as space movies remain popular. Not like the Avatar-esque aliens that simply look like cats and glow.

I also wonder for the timelapses and shots of the deer if all of it was stock footage bought and not shot. I noticed the glimpse of the fox from the True Blood credits seen below. Same footage maybe with just a little color correction?

Overall the animation and motiongraphics of the video are stunning. I'm curious how much of Katy was in post and how much was really shot.

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I had the chance of working as an extra on the set of Liberal Arts this past week. It was wildly different from the other production I was an extra on. This is a much smaller film--a indie. It was really cool because the set was so much smaller meaning I got to talk to a ton of the crew. I never signed anything or heard anything about it being a closed set so I snagged some photos

While waiting in holding in a bookstore, they were shooting a scene in a car on a lift as seen above.

I may get called back to be an extra again-We'll see.

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My little brother graduated highschool, so I surprised him with the video above for his grad party. He really enjoyed it and I had fun editing it. You may seem some glimpses of me too. hehe.

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The image above is a microscopic picture of grands of sand. I don't know why, but for some reason this puts me in awe. Sand, you know, the brown gritty stuff sometimes with shells chopped in that hurt your feet? Can you believe that those tiny grains have so much color and texture? It kind of makes me wonder if within those grains there are entirely different worlds, stars, planets. Blows my mind.

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Favorite (Student) Film of the week:

Loom

This is a student film. a STUDENT film. Believe it? I didn't at first. The animation is positively brilliant- incredible detail. I guess I'm used to the student animation films that portray very round characters with little texture. This piece however takes a small moment and pulls through with innovative imagination.

At first, I didn't think this video would be cool at all. Bugs? Ick. Detailed hairy bazillion eye bugs? Yuck! But really with the score and the visuals this film tells a interesting abstract story and explores new visuals. I can only hope that someone gets these guys a job.

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Cirque Du Soleil has died down and last weekend was probably my last working with them. I had a BLAST! Also, because they liked my work ethic, I got asked to work with the catering people as well. This was interesting because I was usually an extra hand, but I learned a lot. The head chef and pastry chef took a liking to me and taught me how to cook some things, decorate others, and even learn some sugar art! Definitely cool.

Their last shows are next week during my brother's graduation and then they go on up to Canada. But with out a doubt, I've made some great contacts and maybe will work with other Cirque shows in the future on weekends.

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Last Wednesday I got the privilege of working for UBM TechWebTV as a production assistant. I picked up these nice LED 1x1 lights and a back drop. The whole set up was very much like my work with IDEE and was a simple fun job. We shot a couple interviews and then some presentations. I love making  these connections, and it's good to know if I'm ever in New York or San Francisco I can probably get a job with these guys.

In other news, four films are slated to be filmed in Ohio this summer. I was blown away myself. Currently I'm trying to get work with the film Liberal Arts. Hopefully I'll get something!

Oh, and I am officially booked to be an extra for Perks of Being a Wallflower!!!! Next week!!!

This week I'll leave you with this awesomely edited mashup of the Harry Potter films. So sad it's ending...

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Favorite Documentary (Movie) of the Week:

The Accidental Sea

Okay, so it's not really a "movie". But I thought this short documentary was incredibly inspiring. That landscape is strange and unreal. It would be an ideal place to shoot something. As you see above, I kept pondering all these different scenarios in my head. What if the world ended  but only kids were left on the world? What if the toxic waters made humans turned into something zombie-like? What if the air made humans lost their emotions and slowly vanished without hearts?

The other side that I found interesting was the mistake of it all. This huge sea out of nowhere. I'm sure back in it's hay-day it was a great place to vacation. One of those tid bits of information you stash in your pocket for the future.

If anything, it'd be a great photo opportunity. Definately on the list of places to visit.

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Behold! My new employment! Last Tuesday as I was looking for jobs I found one as a Photography Assistant in the Tapis Rough Tent (VIP). The following Wednesday I was working and taking photos! It's been extremely exciting. I worked that Friday also.

Then, Yesterday, four people from the catering part of the Tapis Rouge called in sick. My boss, the main photographer and talked about how well I'd done with other that they gave me a call and next thing I know I was working catering. It was a real blast! I even got to come home with a panini and a wrap because Monday and Tuesday is their "weekend".

I'm continueing to get called in for photo Saturday and for caturing Sunday and Thursday. Safe to say I'm glad I got something and it was clearly unexpected.

(Blurry picture I know, but check out the fancy badge!)

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Other than getting great work with the Cirque Du Soleil, I am a little bummed that I have not been able to get extra work for Perks of Being a Wallflower. I have called the casting agency and done everything they've asked. Now is just the waiting period to see if they'll actually call me in.  I'm also talking with the production for Still I Rise as they start production next week. I'm just hoping for something, extra, PA, anything.

Who knows, it may be something unexpected, yet again.