Wade's Film Log

 Just by shear luck the end of traditional classes and start of pre-prodction week was marked by Talloweekend. It was nice seeing friends from out of town and going to parties with friends, but I needed the the Halloween season to end ASAP so I can get prep for prep. I got that chance when my friends from out of town left Sunday morning and my other friends didn't want to go out Sunday since they were either partied out or felt as though they got scammed.  Neo costume With time now in my hands I determined that the things I needed to do were as follows: -Tech Scout Barbie's location -Monday -ATL Presentation for I Lost What's Mine - Tuesday -Do my Green light meeting - Thursday -Rehearse with actors - TBA That's it, that's all I had to do. Pretty simple stuff. So I got started on my ATL Presentation with was scheduled for Tuesday at since that seemed like the most extensive, and I had the fun quirk of being the very first ATL Presentation of the entire cohort, so I ...

While doing this location research we also had begin planning for our casting calls. For me this was particularly challenging because I was already struggling to describe the film's tone to faculty, and now I was expected to describe the characters and tone without using the working script of the film since I wanted to keep specific details under wraps. It also didn't help that we weren't allowed to post casting calls until after a casting workshop and without proper approval from the school and it was about 3 weeks before I would have to film; in that time I would have to post the call, have a reasonable submission window, have call backs, decide, confirm, sign, and rehearse on top of the other prep work I had to do for my film and the other films. So I got to work. Before we had the casting workshop I was already planning on posting to social media to find a Jordan for my film. Now the last time I posted a casting call to social media I didn't really have too much suc...

One of the quirks with the first semester is the sheer amount of overlap when it comes to pre-production. Now maybe that's just business as usual in the business, but it's something I definitely had to adapt to. Locations was something that was always on my mind, especially considering the idea that I wrote a film to be in a specific kind of location. It was probably around draft #2 where I began to think critically about locations, but I wouldn't actual go location scouting until around draft #3. Because of the way this program works and that I had involvement on 4 other films that would film the same week as my own film, my group and I were recommended to location scout together. We tried our best to coordinate a time for all of us to scout together, but ran into a few difficulties since we had such wide location requirements. An antique store, interrogation room, train station, sorority house, and a sidewalk. While some locations were more common than others the kind of ...

I feel day one of class I had teachers constantly asking "Have you been thinking about your F1's?" And admittedly I have been thinking about my F1 for some time by that point. It was probably around late-May or early-June where I began to think about a story that could go on to define my Fall semester. I would spend an hour every couple days just writing, listening to music, and thinking. One of the things I initially thought about was my dog, Chiky, that had recently died. I developed the general beats, visual aesthetics, and even the choice to light it like a noir. It would be a movie about grief. I left it for about a week and realized it would be terrible choice to make that film because it would mean that I would have to live with that emotion baggage for another 6 months, and I began to question I really wanted to spend my first semester of stressful film school constantly thinking about grief and hidden emotional expression. So I left my sketchbook alone for about ...

 Hey guys! I technically didn't lie in the last post since it's still Fall semester, but yeah it's been a while. I really did mean to write a blog earlier on in the semester, but this little thing in my life called film school really does like to take up my time. For this blog, want to get back into the groove of things, so I figured I'd write about my time at FSU Film so far, before I jump head first into process of my most recent film, I Lost What's Mine . FSU FILM So unlike some other programs, this one is bit weird with it. You're basically spilt into these groups of 5 on day one and then that's you new immediate family for about 13 weeks. For about 10 of those weeks it's a mix of classes and early pre-production for the infamous F1 (a 2 minute 30 second film with only 2 speaking characters). It's pretty bare-bones, but that's where they get you. Now for those who remember me from my AICE Media Studies days, you'll remember the 8-10 week ...

During company wrap and after giving my thanks to the crew, I believe Chris had approached me and asked if I was planning to submit the film to Aquila's Full Circle Film Festival. The FCFF was originally a nice motivator for Sam and I to produce our respective films as at the time when our fall project fell through, Aquila had announced that they would be accepting submissions up until April 5th. We thought it would be cool, and our films were both originally scheduled to shoot before the deadline as to allow for time to edit, but with Sam's film getting pushed back and the real motivation for creating the film taking over, submitting the film had become a secondary concern. I said I'd try to get the film done before Friday but that I wouldn't stress about it too much. In retrospect I was right, I wasn't too stressed about the edit or the festival, but that's not to say I wasn't stressed. On April 5th at 9:00 AM, I was scheduled to have my applicant intervie...

  With dates, actors, crew, locations, and equipment all confirmed it was finally time to do what I wasn't able to achieve prior making it to production. On Saturday March 29th, Sam and I got up bright and early and went to the Dirac library on campus where we would meet our lead Nico. This day was slated to be when we would shoot our "good time" moments at Lake Ella, but before we got there we had to record Nico's VO. Whenever we had to schedule production meetings the FSU libraries website allows for rooms in either of their two libraries to be reserved. Now I'm biased because Dirac was closer to my dorm and has a pretty interior design layout, BUT more importantly Dirac was home to FSU's only public Media Suite, that is also criminally underused. The room comes with a Mac Mini, two monitors, speakers, microphones, stands, soundproofing walls, the Adobe Suite, and countless podcasting/audio programs.  For the session, Sam would be monitoring audio levels and...

In the last post, I spoke about my on-camera talent, so this post will detail the talent behind the camera. To begin, we have my wonderful Producer/Production Designer/Intimacy Coordinator: Sam Perez Laurenza. In all honesty, Sam was always going to be a part of this project, it was mostly a hope of getting Sam somewhere I knew they'd be best in. Sam and I in the past both produced a weekly news show during our time in High School, so I knew they were qualified more so than some of the other options I had at the time. As an effective communicator they were the one doing a lot of the contacting of people and holding me to a deadline. They also helped to get me out of few pickles here and there especially with the whole casting call flop when we only had 2 auditions for only 1 of the characters. They also helped a lot during production making sure we'd stay on schedule, ordering food, and as well as serving as another pair of eyes when I wanted another opinion on a shot.  In term...