Day Two

Oh, okay. So that’s how a film is created. I totally get it. –That’s what I wish I could say after class, but I don’t quite feel that confident. I’m not saying that I didn’t learn a lot from the workshop last class (Eric did clear up a lot of fuzzy areas), just that it was so much information all at once that I couldn’t digest it. Every step in the process of making a film seemed to have ten sub-steps and about fifty people for each of those sub-steps (I’m probably being conservative on those estimates).
The main quality that I admire in these artists called filmmakers is their ability to make decisions. They seem to know (well the filmmakers on the behind the scenes clips from LoTR and Star Wars seemed to know anyway) exactly what they want out of every shot. Maybe it’s because of my indecisive nature that I find it hard to imagine seeing something so clearly that you automatically know what has to happen for the end product to turn out the way they want. It takes me twenty minutes to figure out what kind of toothpaste to buy, I can’t imagine the amount of stress it takes to decide what lighting, music, sound effects, special effects, and dialogue to include in a scene. Hopefully my indecisiveness won’t hinder me too much in class. It seems as though, more so in filmmaking than any other art, there are so many more decisions to be made to create a quality product. I find, for myself anyway, that things just come to mind naturally with a pencil and paper in front of me. However, with a camera and an infinite number of ways to tell an infinite number of stories or invoke a mood…where do they start?
Another thing that struck me while watching the short videos about making LoTR and Star Wars was the trust is must take to create a film. There are so many people doing so many different tasks on this one project and each person has to hand over complete trust to every other person. True, there are people who look over the progress and make sure that the work is cohesive, but even then, people must trust each other completely. Their name will be attached to this work from now on. I’m slightly worried about this aspect of filmmaking. If I have an idea that I feel strongly about and have a certain vision for, I can get kind of closed off until I see my idea through. I think that’s a good problem to have in a way: feeling so strongly about an idea that I must see it realized. Hopefully, it won’t turn into stubbornness.

Day One

The first day of film class begins and as soon as I sit down I realize, with a drop of my stomach, that I don’t know anything about filmmaking or the history behind it. After a minute of thinking about this fact, I come to the conclusion that everything will be fine as long as I pay attention and stay enthusiastic. I’m excited but scared at the same time, honestly. I think I’ll be okay at analyzing films, but the whole creating a film is a bit daunting to me. There are so many different possibilities in film making--so many different stories you can tell, ways you can tell the same story, characters you can introduce to the audience, and places you can take the audience even if just for an hour or so. I wouldn’t know where to begin, but that is what class is for after all: to learn.
I began to think about perspective a lot as a result of class and the discussions of how film evolved through the different techniques used. Film gives us a different set of eyes. We have no choice in the matter in what we see. We see what we are shown and we hear what we are subjected to. Your eyes and ears are no longer yours during a film. While I would argue that watching a movie or a show is a more passive form of entertainment than reading for example (in that you, the audience, are subjected to the visual and audio experience within the film), I think it is perhaps the most personal form of expression for the filmmaker. It takes a tremendous amount of creativity and vision to create a film (I’m guessing anyway). Through film we experience every sense except smell and because of this; films guide our emotions in a way.
It amazes me how people can create an entire alternate reality within the frame of a movie or show. Film is, in my opinion, the ultimate form of expression for the film makers. They are creating this entire alternate reality for the audience to watch, hear, think, and feel about. Obviously, everyone will not think and feel exactly the same way about a film, but the filmmaker’s vision and purpose is still present. The audience sees not only into the lives of the characters within the film, but into the mind of the filmmaker and everyone contributing to the film. I think that’s also one thing that strikes me the most about film--the connection between filmmaker and audience.