Rainy In LA

This blog is designed to talk about my adventures in film school and my pursuit to find the original LAFD Station 51 from the tv show "Emergency!"

[rainyinla]

March 2nd

Attending an Oscar party at school, free food and hanging out with friends!

[rainyinla]

February 21st

Busy day today. I am the camera operator for a commercial shoot this morning. (It's for a contest) then I have to meet with my writing partner for an hour to work on our spec script for Modern Family. After which, I must report to work. Sometime during work, I will be taking an hour off so that I can appear as an extra in film. I play a phone sex operator! Later tonight is a film festival at the school. Very, very busy day!

[rainyinla]

Winter term 2014

It's been a while since I have posted something here, I apologize, mostly to myself for not keeping up. The holidays were good, I spent a week in Las Vegas with a small group of friends. We spent a lot of time just hanging out and doing nothing.

My return to school brought new friends and new adventures. I am taking an intro to Acting class and 3, yes 3 writing classes. Note to self and anyone listening, never take 3 writing classes at the same time. I am extremely busy. However, i am loving it!

I am taking a class on writing adaptations, which I absolutely love. This is big time fan fiction writing, except that you can get paid for it! I've already written  four 3-4 page adaptations and one 15 page adaptation. I am looking for new material for my next 15 page story.

My second writing class is TV Comedy writing with Lenny Ripps. Look him up, he has written a lot of good stuff the most recent being Frankenweenie. In this class I am working with a partner, Wayne, on a script for the tv show Modern Family. We have outlined an episode which we will be writing over the next 3 or 4 weeks. It is a lot of work but very fun. I got a good partner, he has written comedy before and is guiding me through the process.

The third class is about developing characters. I am also writing several lengthy scripts and learning how to develop a character before you ever write a word on the page. I'll admit it, this class is killing me. But I am glad that I am taking it.

In addition to all of these classes, I got a job. Which is one of the reasons I haven't updated in so long. I am working at the school, so I am now there 5 days a week. Makes me tired but I am happy.

[rainyinla]

Meet Rich People

In this filmmaking article, producer Jason Brubaker explains how to meet rich people so you can get movie money.

[rainyinla]

Movie night

Just watched the documentary Tales From The Script, which is about life as a scriptwriter. Very interesting information that definitely makes one re-think about their choice to be a screenwriter.

[rainyinla]

Kill Her Be Killed - my first short film. Mystery! Suspense! Danger! This film has it all.

[rainyinla]

This hangs on the wall outside of one of my class rooms.

[rainyinla]

Today the weather is living up to my name, it is rainy in LA.

[rainyinla]

Thanksgiving Nov. 28, 2013

Well, it has been awhile since I have updated. Once again time has gotten away from. I have completed the rough edit of my PoP short film. The only issue I have run into is volume. Apparently the boom mic was not operational during the shoot so the dialogue is very low. I'm working on a solution to that.

Got my storyboards finished for my Visual Design project. I still need to find some actors and shoot it. I need to do that soon as I am running out of time. It's hard to believe that we only have a few weeks left in this term. I have learned quite a lot.

I have registered for classes for next term. I signed up for Intro to Acting, Scriptwriting 2, Writing Adaptations, and Scriptwriting for TV Comedy. Lots of writing next term but that is my major and I am looking forward to it.

[rainyinla]

Thursday Nov. 14, 2013

Oren Peli, the Director, and Producer of Paranormal Activity as well as The Chernobyl Diaries and Insidious came to speak at the school tonight. Very interesting man. It was great to hear how he came up with the concept of Paranormal Activity and how it eventually became the hit that it is.

[rainyinla]

Personal Update

It's been a while since I have posted an update. My personal situation has been chaotic these last few weeks. I had to leave the place I was staying at and ended up at a friends place 40 miles from the school. While I am still looking for work, I have run out of money for gas and personal essentials. I have set up a page for donations if anyone can help. Even if you can't help monetarily it would be great if you re-blogged this post. I keep thinking that I may have to give up my dreams here in LA and head back North.

The webpage is: http://www.gofundme.com/59omvs

Thank you in advance for what ever help you can give.

[rainyinla]

Friday October 25th

Tonight we had a Halloween Film Festival. 17 crews made short films. I gotta say, Watch out world there are some amazing movie makers coming your way.

[rainyinla]

Wednesday October 16th

Today we had a special guest at the school, Director John Badham. John directed many movies and tv shows including: Saturday Night Fever, War Games, Stakeout, Bird On A Wire, Short Circuit, (tv shows) Psyche, The Shield, Heroes,, Crossing Jordan, Criminal Minds and many, many more. It was a very interesting discussion. John has a way of telling a story that just brings you in. Very funny and very informative.

[rainyinla]

Tuesday October 15th

We are already into our 4th week of the quarter and it is going fast. Yesterday was Principles of Production and Visual Design.

PoP was interesting. Two of the seniors came in and taught us how to set up C-stands, tri-pods and the basic camera we will be using for our short films. It also included safety tips on set-up, tear downs and in general. Very informative class. I was the only one taking notes and answering their questions.

At the end of class, the instructor reviewed all of our scripts. Mine was the only one to get the go-ahead. Everyone else has to do re-writes.

Visual Design class was interesting but I was not as prepared as I should have been. I totally blanked on the fact that I needed to do some reading. Oops! Now I am behind. I also had a 3 page paper due that I only finished one page. I explained to the instructor that I was trying to keep myself from being homeless at the end of the month and he said I could have another week to finish the paper.

We spent the class talking about how to use motion to show field of depth. Camera motion not actor motion. And then we talked more in depth about editing choices and we watched some clips from The Godfather, Annie hall and Bonnie and Clyde. In the end we watched Men in Black for next weeks discussion.

I need to do some homework now. I have a lot of reading.

[rainyinla]

Weekly update Sunday October 13

I really need to update during the week. I'll try harder this week.

So, Monday Production class, each of us were suppose to have a page of dialogue and 2 actors who had rehearsed. We placed our sets and actors and then practiced camera set ups. We discussed camera angles (high, low), different shots (wide, med, and close up) and how to direct our actors. The class was boring and interesting at the same time, if you can believe that.

Visual Design class was quite broken up. First we went to the auditorium and watched a documentary being shown by the Bel Air film festival. The movie was about the relationship between an architect and a family that hired him to design a house for them. The story itself was interesting but the way it was presented was boring. Spent most of the time analyzing film edits and camera angles. The film was called The Oyler House: Richard Neutra's Desert Retreat.

After the documentary we discussed different elements of the film including many of the shots we had previously discussed. We then talked about the reading assignment, perspective, basic shots, and editing styles.

THURSDAY

On Thursday, in Editing class we started by watching a cartoon: Pinky and the Brain which is one of my favorite cartoons. We began to discuss the reading assignment for the week and I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO DID THE READING! I did a short summary of the chapter and then the instructor spent ten minutes chastising the class. We then spent the rest of the class setting up our external hard drives and actually editing a clip. We worked on a scene from the television show Monk. I have to admit, I got a little lost. There was a section where I was attempting to do one thing as he was discussing the next thing and I got lost. I managed to catch up but I am not certain what I did. 

However, I know someone who is a senior in the editing emphasis, I am going to ask here if she will review things with me before class this week. Hopefully, it will make better sense to me.

Script Analysis - we discussed the reading (more Aristotle's Poetics) and Reversals and Revelations which is the point of a movie where there is a turn in the story.  Next, we broke into groups of two and had to quickly outline a story of our own making that included both a reversal and a revelation. Also, we had to come up with a title. The title was the most difficult part. I really like what my partner and I came up with and I am going to develop it further and see if I can make something I can market. We finished the night by watching All About Eve(1950) starring Bette Davis

On Friday, I was invited to see the movie Gravity with some of my classmates. The movie was awesome. Much better than I expected. I won't talk about it here in case some people want to go see it..

[rainyinla]

Update part 2

Thursday was Editing Theory and Script Analysis. The instructor for Editing was five minutes late and everyone was worried that they didn't buy the correct hard drive. Turns out we all bought the correct one. We talked a lot about the different types of camera shots: close-ups, medium shot, long shot, 2 shot, establishing shot, birds eye view, worms view and many, many more. We watched clips from Raging Bull, Rainman and a French film called A Woman is a Woman.

Homework - read a chapter from First Cut: A Conversation with Film Editors.

In Script Analysis, we had a quiz about the reading assignment. I didn't do so well. I finished reading Aristotle's Poetics but did not finish Sophocles Oedipus Rex. And, of course, most of the questions were about Oedipus Rex. We talked a lot about the reading and the movie we watched the previous week, Romeo and Juliet, and how they worked in the film structure. We spent the rest of the class discussing Aristotle's ideals on writing and how they are still used today.

Friday, I met with 2 of my classmates at the school where we rehearsed for Monday. Should be interesting, I get to be a teenage runaway from a foster home. Read the chapter for Editing class as well.

[rainyinla]

Update for the past week Sunday Oct 6th

Monday in Production class, we talked briefly about scriptwriting just the basics and nothing but the basics. Then we spent the rest of the class talking about actors and acting. Each of us had to get up in front of the class and act out a scene. We had to show that we were making a sandwich. I made a BLT. I don't like acting, I never liked playing "house" when I was a kid. I'd rather play a sport.

Assignment for the week: write one page of dialogue between 2 characters, find two actors and rehearse for Monday.

Visual design class had us finishing North By Northwest. We talked about using blank space on the screen. Then discussed the structure of film starting with the opening, an inciting incident, the build up to the climax and finally the ending. We finished the class by watching ET.

Homework - Read 30 pages from the assigned book.

On Tuesday, I went to the school library and read the pages for Visual Design.

On Wednesday, I wrote my dialogue and made plans with 2 classmates.