Film noir weekend project

My second semester in the film production program is chugging along steadily. I was told by a second-year that this semester would be “intense,” and I get what he’s saying because so far, there is little room to slack off and put off projects.

Our main film this semester is a 4-6 minute sound film. Last semester, our two films did not have sound, so the addition of it will create a different on-set environment then what we’re used to. Not only do we have to worry about whether the sound levels are good and eliminating background noise, but the addition of a sound department means more co-ordination is involved. So our shoots will rely a lot on assistant directors and/or production managers, whose job is to plan and ensure each department (lighting, camera, sound) is on top of their tasks.

The assistant director does this task so the director can work with the actors, since the addition of sound means there’s spoken lines – and the delivery of those lines largely influence the feel of the scene.

We’re also using a different camera (Arri SRII) this semester, so this first month we’ve been practicing with the camera and sound equipment and working to become qualified to work in those departments.

This weekend we will be putting our acquired skills to the test in a film noir project. We have been split into three crews and will work on separate film shoots. The directors for each film are graduates of the program, while the second-year students will serve as mentors for each department.

I applied for a camera position and got it, so I’m pretty excited about that. The director of my group is going to stream the shoot on his website, so you can see the filmmaking process in action.

You can check it out at http://www.ryanlavia.com/oh-gary-project.html