cewaterwiese

This is my last blog post for the semester, and it has been an interesting one.

Over the course of nearly five months, I have had the opportunity to work with wonderful high school students from across the Roanoke Valley. To watch them grow and development has been a wonderful experience.

They have covered a vast amount of information in such a short time as well. It has been quite impressive to see them tackle the new information and quickly adapt to new technology and programs. Comparing their early videos to ones now is often amusing.

This program requires such a time commitment from the students. The students are in Film Lab almost eight hours a week and often have substantial homework assignments.  When I look back at my high-school experience I know I would not have been able to commit. I love seeing their dedication to film.

Next semester the student will begin their short films. Two will be chosen and the class will be divided into teams to bring the winning stories of life. They will spend the entirety of semester filming and editing. At the end, the short films will be sent to festivals across the country.

Today (11/28), the students bid for positions on the film crews for the spring. Each student will fill the role of Director, Producer, Director of Photography, Editor, Technician, or Other (specified) for one of the two films. If a student’s script is chosen, they get first choice to decide if they want to Direct. Outside of this exception, the students bid and get divided by my supervisor.

The two scripts have not yet been chosen. My supervisor sent the scripts out to a number of readers and has not yet heard back from all of them. When he does, the winning two will set the motion for the spring.

I was originally suppose to intern the entire year. But as I take into account my academic and personal schedules I am not sure I can continue the time commitment. However, I have enjoyed my time interning at the Grandin Film Lab. I look forward to seeing the final productions from this group. If I do not continue then I will still attend the screening of their final products.

I would recommend this internship to a student who wants to explore avenues of film making.

https://www.grandintheatre.com/history

Last Monday (10/29), the students learned about types of lighting. Today (11/7), they applied their new understanding of lightening to settings on the camera. Things like grain, zebra strips, exposure, aperture, white balance and iris all flew around the room. While I am typing this, I am actually being used as model for one of the groups. My paleness and light hair caused the group some difficulty which my supervisor found amusing. I then started taking pictures and was eventually handed a professional camera to jaunt around the room and record the day.

About halfway through the class, my supervisor had a professional lighting/electrician film professional come to the class. He brought his own equipment to class as well, which he uses on productions. The students then took the rest of the class to put together equipment, manipulate lighting effects with different tools and methods, and experimentation.

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Today (11/14), the students began their first unit of Directing. They started with learning about how Directors are more ‘generalists.’ A sort of jack-of-all-trades, master of none, better than a master of one type deal.

In the 1950s-1960s, a new wave of auteur directors rose to prominence. This was the belief that the director is the primary author of a film and said film should reflect the director’s creative vision. Auteur directors were known for controlling every aspect of their films to a high artistic standard. Alfred Hitchcock was an example of an auteur director and he story-boarded every scene in the film. No scenes were filmed that were not necessary. Other examples include Truffaut, Kubrick, and Bergman. A modern example is David Fincher.

Terry Gilliam suggested filteur theory. This was the belief that a director must “filter” though all ideas regarding films from all sources on the set. This is a more collaborative method of film making and has rose to more prominence today over auteur directing. Directors should have the strongest idea of what the movie will look like and sound like and is primarily responsible for artistic execution of a film and being the decision maker. If the director’s clear vision is communicated well, the vision will inspire departments to think creatively. Vice versa, departments share their creativity with the director who then filters them to the final vision.

 

Film Lab has been going well. The students have been developing their short story scripts on their journey into the complex mechanics of script writing. At the end of this semester, the best scripts from students will be chosen and put into full production for the duration of the program- the entirety of next semester. Seeing this process has been amazing. Their first project was writing scripts based on music videos. These were rather…interesting. And my, how they have improved. I cannot help but believe that this class will help their in-school writing as well, especially since most of the students are high school sophomores.

Today the students brought the drafts of their short stories to class and conferred with other students, basically a peer-review system. At the beginning of the semester I doubt this activity would have been helpful. But now, with the knowledge and language and practice of analyzing, I have hopes that this activity will, in fact, be beneficial. I write this during the introduction of the activity to the class and will check back in at the end of today’s session.

The script break-out session went very well. I had four students whom I consulted. Three of them brought scripts, one of which was finished. I was very impressed with their drafts. One student is working on a one-room suspense film. While he is struggling to build the pressure and anxiety, he is very keen on making it happen. I offered advice while my supervisor was in the room. My supervisor was impressed, and I overheard his reuse my comments later. One of the drafts is very much a draft. The third, the only complete script, was excellent. I offered some alternatives for the ending and the student asked is she could use them. All of their writing skills have come along immensely, and I am proud of their progress.

The students are now working on their cinematography project. I was not here when they began this project (due to midterms and fall break) but I helped some of them with settings in Adobe Premiere. I am not fully familiar with the program but adapted some of my skills from other Adobe software. I am looking forward to seeing their films after today’s session.

 

I am Christa Waterwiese, a senior International Relations major and History minor. This year, in the fall and spring, I am interning at the Grandin Theatre Film Lab. The Grandin Film Lab is an integrated model of experiential learning in filmmaking for high school students in the Roanoke and Salem area.  The Film Lab teaches students film production, lighting, screenwriting, storytelling, acting, sound engineering, and film industry acumen.  The program is through the Historic Grandin Theatre, which is just across the street. The students spend their time learning and then developing their own short films in the second semester of the program. The short films are even submitted to film contests across the country!

This year the Film Lab has two separate groups, Beginners and Advanced. I am interning with the Beginners on Mondays and Wednesdays. Since I have started, the Beginners (almost all sophomores) have begun working on understanding the breakdown of stories and script writing. As the intern, I help with administrative duties and serve as a teacher’s assistant to the Program Coordinator. This past session was the most interactive so far. The students started developing their own screenplay scripts based on songs they chose. I went between the students and helped them cultivate their ideas, assist with understanding screenplay formatting, and helped with learning the program. Their scripts are due this coming Wednesday, and I will continue to help the students write on Monday.