Film school is a little like Ed Wood and a little like Charlie Chaplin

So I have a lot of stuff coming up and going on in the next month or so. First of all, Saturday I spent the entire day filming my final film project. I can't think of anything more stressful and problem-matic than that. Basically my film class is one big lecture on the million things that can go wrong with the Bolex camera and how to defeat the odds. My whole class is basically making a movie Charlie Chaplin style where you have to produce, edit, direct, star and score everything yourself with 16 mm film. I love the sharp-ness of it, but it's 10x more difficult than video. I pretty much feel like Ed Wood also because we have to edit everything in camera so I'm watching actors mess up takes and having lighting, sound and prop problems and I hear myself going "THAT WAS GREAT!" Since I have only one take with every shot.

So it's an impossible feat where there are 4 different ways there are camera jams and 5 different ways of light leaks. Not to mention the same faulty equipment that D.W Griffith shot with. I have only three rolls of film and I have to wait a week before it even comes back to lab where I'll probably find out that it is COMPLETELY black and I have no footage. Then, even if I have footage, the lighting will be inconsistent, the acting/continutaty off, the framing out of focus and anything else you can think of that could be awful. Thus then, I have to transfer it twice from FILM to DVC to CD. Then I have to completely foley all the sound in myself where I make my friends stomp around while I record footsteps. After doing all that, then I sit for hours with a million corrections of editing to make. THEN, when it's completed with hope I get through all that, I screen it in front of a hundred or more people with them all judging it like the hack that I am and the critics they are. Oh, the magic of movie making. I keep asking myself, WHY THE HELL WOULD ANYONE WANT TO GO THROUGH THIS?

So yeah, the filming part is done, and I'm really praying to the movie gods that it's fine. I have to give much credit to Andy and Linda for acting in it. And also the 6'5''+ football player named Steve whom I pulled out of the hallway and made him act in it randomly when he was supposed to be icying his knee. There's still so much to do, but while it's processing in the lab, I'm working on my other project with my co-directing partner Chrissy. I'm actually really excited for the project we're working on. I spent a few hours editing it and fixing some lighting consistency with her and I think it looks pretty good. There's still the sound to go, but I might have a project from this class that I heaven forbid, actually show other people and be proud to call my own. Overall, at least I'll have something to look back on and say, "yeah, I made this with 16 mm film, what did you do at college bitches!!!"