USC Week 3

The week has finally concluded and I have so many things to update you on. On Monday and Tuesday, all of us screened our project # 1 films we had been working on for the past couple of days. It was such a hectic and arduous weekend especially for me, not experienced in shooting a film. I was stressed out shooting my film but most of all editing. I have something to say to the makers of AVID: "What in the world were you thinking when you invented this program"? I spent about 7-8 hours just trying to figure out how to edit but most of all, trying to create titles and credits for my film. I screened my film on Tuesday and to the surprise of myself, most of my classmates thought it was a fairly good movie. When I read the comments that were written by my classmates, I saw that the majority of them thought it was a movie that wasn't too complicated and was very easy to follow. My teacher, Don Zirpola was also supportive and gave me a lot of sage advice about what I should I improve on for my next film.

On Wednesday, we met Jim Bissel, the production designer for such movies as 300 and Jumanji. He gave us an overview and a descriptive account about what he actually does and what steps he takes in preparation for developing sets for his movies. He showed us a reel of 3 movies he had partaken and showed us step by step the different stages from beginning to end. I would rate him as one of the better lectures we've had, second only to Joel Cox. We also were shown the lighting and gripping department and had a short tour of what kind of lighting Universal Studios offers to television as well as film. All in all, it was a really productive day except for the food, which caused me to have a stomach ache by days end.

On Thursday, we traveled to Zemeckis and were given a lesson about the cameras we were going to use for project #2. Our instructor for the day, Raul Fernandez gave us the rundown about the cameras (16mm) we would be using for our projects as well as teaching us how to put film into each of our cameras. It was really interesting seeing the intricacies about how a 16mm camera works. Besides the camera, we were given a light meter, a tripod, a battery pack, spools of film, and caps for the lenses. In the afternoon, we were given a lesson about lighting and how lighting has an affect on particular subject depending on where you position your lights. It was a very educational day and definitely was a great way to end the week.