10:11 PM

On set right now. Just finished dinner. We started a couple of hours behind schedule and now somehow we're miraculously 2 hours ahead. How did that happen? Oh well, not complaining. Everything looks good/is going well. Just hope we get everything done by the time we wrap tomorrow.

Ugh... tomorrow... don't even want to think about it!

6:44 PM

I'm not counting the days anymore. It's too confusing and probably not even accurate.

So rumor has it that Hooper and his class saw the footage and had a pretty positive response to it. That's a huge deal for me personally, because Hooper shot a really great Indian movie, Satya. In my head I've made this complicated connection as to why him liking the footage is such a big deal. It makes sense to me.

Of course now, the pressure is on for us to not only re-create last weekend, but surpass it in terms of quality and efficiency. We need to do a few re-shoots, and there are a couple of aspects of the performances I need to hammer out with my actors. The initial response is good, and I think it can either go really up or really down from here. I'm hoping it will be the former, and with this crew, I'm pretty sure it will be. Nothings written in stone, however, to use a really banal expression. I'm still preparing for the worst situations possible. I'm glad that we've shifted both shoots to noon, because not only do we not have to deal with early mornings, but we'll get more time in the dark too. There are huge windows behind the staircase, and if it's daylight outside, well, it's hard to create the illusion of a late night party. Also, we decided we'll have to dub a lot of the sound over. That means that I don't have to flip out so much when there's noise on set. That's somewhat relieving.

In local news, I just bombed my history midterm. I wrote this really cool sounding sentence about how Teddy Roosevelt's policies were different from his 'post-war predecessors.' Cool phrase, huh? Too bad WWI happened after Roosevelt. Although, as Krissy points out, I didn't indicate WHICH war. I could have very well been referring to the Civil War. It's a thin argument, but he should give me the points anyway for the cool alliteration. Oh, and also, Anna Nicole Smith?! This, among other events, have made today one of the strangest days in a very long time.

Stay tuned tomorrow for pre-shoot jitters!

First Still!

There you have it, kids. The first official still from senior project. Nick and I started some rough editing today, just to see how some shots fit together and what needs to be redone. We watched all the footage from this past weekend and everything looks really good! It's a relief. There are a few stray shots here and there that need to be fixed but it's nothing that we can't do this weekend. We're also still playing around with the colors and everything. This actually isn't totally black and white; there's a touch of sepia to it. But this is the first still for the time being. Don't leak it to them presses, ya hear?!

Day 28: 1:03 AM

The weekend is officially over. I'm so out of it. We went from about 4:00 am til about 4:00 PM today, I think. Some of us started even earlier than that. Everything went extremely well, and now Josh Nick and I have to look at the footage we've shot so far and make sure it cuts well together. There were so many amazing shots that we got today that I'm happy with. I'm starting to feel like these characters are coming to life, and that the whole thing is developing its own atmosphere. This crew is just fantastic, I could really go on about them. There's no one on set that has been causing problems, actors included.

It was funny, we got into Ross Commons and taped up all the windows, so it felt as if it was dark all day. Then we got out in the afternoon and the day was only haf done. Trippy. I came back and slept right through the superbowl, and now I'm just disoriented. I'm on what I call India time. This is exaclty how I feel when I come home from India; my luggage is everywhere (equipment) I spent the day on a plane with a fucked up time schedule (set) and my sleep schedule is off. Anyway, more detailed account of the weekend to come. In the meantime, I'm going to work on getting back to normal for midterm week.

Day 27: 4:35 AM

so early

Day 26: 10:55 PM

First day of shooting. Dog tired.

Everyone worked their asses off today, and everything/everyone looked amazing. Had some issues with sound, but need to learn to let that go because it'll never be perfect, and things can be fixed in post. But god i wish they would make that building empty out for us. god forbid we use school property to shoot a final thesis instead of play pool and watch tv!

call is early tomorrow. heading over to jenns' around 5. not looking forward to it. going to suck. we have to be out before the superbowl party comes in, which should be around 3. assholes.

tomorrow we need to focus on: having every shot planned out, making sure the actors are ready in time, worrying less about sound and more about shots, and moving super fast. yeah, it can be done.

i just tried to innocently fix myself a sandwich and i swear vladmir started squeaking. (he's a mouse that lives around the radiator, but i thought we were rid of him for sure.)

ok, eating salad and sleep. goodnight.