Art Intimidating Life

I give movie makers a lot of credit. Over the past month, Ray and myself have be trying to produce a movie for my video production class… and of course for the NWOt. Without giving away too much detail, it’s a short film about a doomed documentary crew and its cursed subject. The script is only 3 pages long, yet after 2 days we really have nothing of value.

It’s not our fault however… I believe that the prop that we’re using as the cursed object really is cursed… and it’s out to get us. Even when I used it for my photography class, pictures with it have weird exposures or the chemicals in the darkroom suddenly loose potency. As for this instance, I’m always stuck with the crap equipment from the college video lab.

The first day, the battery on the microphone died and we didn’t know it, so there was no sound. Not only that, we were shooting on too nice of a day. You may be wondering how could there be such a thing as too nice of a day. Well, there was, and the sun kept up knocking off the settings of the camera… but that really didn’t matter in the end since and dialogue we had wasn’t on the tape.

Upon getting the equipment home for the second shoot, I find that the microphone doesn’t work at all. Most likely due to a shabby cable thrust upon me. The day before spring break will leave this kind of stuff lying around no matter how far in advance you reserve the tools of the trade.

Brilliant mind that I am, I decided to make it a silent film. Except now, upon review of the tape I find that many of the shots were no good. My concurrent lackings of depth perception and giant studio monitor were obviously the culprits on this one. It definitely was not A grade material; so much so, my critic of a VCR tried to dispose of the evidence! Luckily (which is a matter of opinion at this point), I got the tape out without destroying it.

So now I work on an “artsy film.” You know, one of those films that only make sense to that pale-skinned, sunglasses-indoors 1% of the population. (That, to the left, is a production still from it by the way. It too is artsy.) It seems the thing to do to insure a good grade, and survive a compulsory campus wide film fest and competition or some such nonsense. Hopefully there will be some sort of a monetary prize at the end that will fund another attempt at the first movie.

Now that’s some Zen for you – I’m selling out to the non-sellout crowd in order to become a sellout in the eyes of the non-sellout crowd.