Confessions of an Adelphi Film Student

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

My Reflections Looking Back

Wow! It’s hard to believe yet another semester here at Adelphi has come and gone. It feels like just yesterday we were starting the spring semester.

I remember back in January when I first decided to take Video 1. I walked into the classroom that first day, knew no one, and heard what was expected of us and I almost dropped the class on the spot. I was so worried that I had bitten of more than I could chew.

As the semester progressed and I stared blogging my progress and interacting with the other students in my class I soon came to love attending class, sometimes even wishing it was longer or more frequent. I don’t know when or how it happened by we’re rounding out the last week of the semester and I find myself sitting here typing this with tears in my eyes. I'm sad this experience is over. It's one I truly never saw coming and have enjoyed immensely. I find myself now with some of the best and closest friends I’ve ever had and with a new found love and passion for film that I never knew I had. I'll never forget where and with who it all began!

I would like to thank my Rough Exotica family, and that’s what we’ve become, a family. I never could have done it without you guys. We were like a “band of thieves in ripped up jeans, who ruled the world” with our wicked sense of humor and positive outlook. I’m so glad that we all found each other and I cherish our friendships. Fall Film 1 look out, Rough Exotica will be back in full force!

This really has been such a wonderful and enriching journey for me. I was uncertain as to what I wanted to do with my life and I really had no direction. Taking this class, working with these people and creating a film from scratch that I am so proud of has really helped me to decide what I want to do with my life.

To all the young film makers out there who feel afraid, foolish, or that they can’t make movies, I’m here to tell you that’s not the case. Keep dreaming big and going after what makes you happy. If that’s your art, live it, love it and own it!

I will do my best to keep up the blog and will hopefully document my journey come fall when I start Film 1. Thank you everybody who has taken this journey with me! Your support means the world to me!!

This song, "Long Live," by Taylor Swift, is for our group. We did it guys!!

Adelphi Film Festival

One of the best parts of making a film is being able to screen it with and for all of your fellow peers, colleagues and professors. Last night (5/11/11) at 7pm in the Olmstead Theater was the annual Adelphi Film Festival.

Rough Exotica (Our group) did submit “Rebirth” for the festival but unfortunately we were not selected. We did however make the honorary mention category and our film was screened prior to the main festivities.

We were all disappointed in not being selected but we decided to, as a group, attend the festival and show support for our fellow film makers. As Professor Campbell once said, “One of the best learning techniques is watching, observing, and seeing what aesthetics you can take and apply to your own techniques and vision.”

There was such an overwhelming zest of excitement and enthusiasm for film in the auditorium which really made me feel happy and excited. I love seeing young film makers, like myself, who are proud and excited to celebrate and share their craft.

All of the films that made it into the festival were phenomenal in their own individual rights. I loved the creativity and liberty that was taken by all the directors and was really inspired to hopefully next year be one of them.

My favorite film of the night was, “All I Ever Wanted,” which was written, directed and starred my friend Brandon Scott Touhey. His film went on to win the “Best Actor” category.

Check out the film’s Facebook page here

Name Changes & The Whole Shabang!

Well, the film is finally finished. It feels extremely weird saying that. I feel like this is a project that I’ve been talking about for so long at this point.

I wanted to take you through the process and highlight something’s that I encountered while creating my film, “Rebirth.” I feel that these are very common things that occur during the creation of a student film and are therefore my final words of wisdom to you.

Let’s start with the title. Originally, the film was to be called, “Love Will Set You Free.” Based on my original script I really felt this to be an appropriate title.

I had written the script in such a way that it told the story of this young girl who had achieved her dreams of becoming a famous musician but got sucked into the monster known as fame. It told the story of battling ones inner demons and being able to overcome obstacles. Her choosing love was supposed to be what set her free. Granted in this synopsis it sounds cliché and campy but I promise you it had an enormous amount of heart and whit.

Once filming began and all of the actors were cast I knew immediately that the story that I had written and created would not be told. Our actors were not good at memorizing lines and felt more comfortable reading them and then improvising off of them. We did many rewrites of the script right in the middle of scenes. It was all about making it as fluid as humanly possible.

As the director I met with them as a group and we discussed the vision of the project. Ultimately we decided to use the script as a guideline and filming continued. I felt a little disappointed that my original vision had been changed but I was also very excited with what we had all come up with.

Listening to my actors really helped them to engage and get into their characters. It morphed from a drama to a dark comedy and got the story across in a different way.

While editing the piece together we felt that the title, “Rebirth,” fit not only the film itself but the group that we had become.

While it is essential that you don’t lose the main focus of your film or what you’re trying to convey it is also just as important to listen and adapt with the people that you are working with. And so we have….Rebirth!