100 monkeys locked in a room with 100 typewriters...

Wednesday night's class brought us a new topic and a new instructor. James Savoca. James is from New York and while he lived there, he transitioned from playwright to independent filmmaker which he is still active with and his next film is premiering at the Mill Valley Film Festival in October. The title of the film is Around June. You can see James' reel here. He will be our writing instructor for the year, and if our first class is any indication of what that will be like... it is going to be intense. We covered tons of ground and it was all interesting and helpful. It was a basic storytelling lecture that covered plot, action, characters, writer's tools, tension, etc. It was one on those classes where my pen never left my notebook. Always writing. We ended the class with James telling us that we will be pitching our first short film to him on Monday. This is the guideline for that film:

-3 pages maximum. 

-2 characters maximum. 

-1 major location, with 1 "B" location. 

-shot entirely on campus. 

-50% must use lights. 

Along with the pitch which he wants in both one sentence and one paragraph form we were also assigned a character sketch. 

Thursday nights class had us back Stephen and back with the camera. We covered Shot Terminology which included camera movements, perspectives, and angles. When there was about 2 hours left, Stephen surprised us an assignment. Starting right then the 5 of us were to write, film, and edit (in camera) a short film using as many of the ideas that we covered in class. This would be the only time we would do this as a group the whole year. It went off relatively smoothly but did have the usual speed bumps of everyone wanting their voice heard. We all worked together really well though. My shot was a "truck" shot. Being that we didn't have access to a truck, which allows the camera to move, I held the camera and sat in a rolling chair while two of my other classmates pulled me down a hallway. It came off okay all things considered. Stephen is going to critique our film on Saturday. That should be interesting...