Mess of Me

People in film are notorious for being unable to keep up relationships, to hold families together-- to even date for extended periods of time. Ever thought about why?

Most [Christian] people would say it's because they don't know God, and that's why the relationship doesn't stick. Legit answer, that, I'll give you; but it's not entirely right.

It's the mindset rather than the method that's messed up here. Do any of you (quite honestly) know how many hours a filmmaker spends working on a production each day? Give me a guess. Eight? Ten? Twelve?

It's higher. The average is 15+ hours of work on the set.

That is insane. That barely allows time for SLEEP, much less family and relationships.

Filmmakers have deadlines, and they work like crazy before production, during, and after. Then they start a new production.

Their life is their work. Relationships require effort to work out, and they can't give them that.

Actors have it similarly, though not as bad. When working on a film, they're putting in long days too, and their contracts often require them to go in to re-film certain scenes after the movie is over, or to record voice-overs. It's a long process; really long.

This mindset of work as all important is a big mess. It's a misplacement of priorities and I'm out to change it. Lord, show us what MATTERS!

-Tina

Sweep you off your feet!

Remember how I love film? Life and I teamed up to throw me a curveball. Yes, that's right. I threw myself a curveball. It's CURVED, after all, right?

I'm creating a film from one of my screenplays, this very summer! It's the end of this month. I wrote it and have been drafting people to help me make it since...April or May, I think. So it's my fault if I'm busy, but not entirely, I think, because I didn't have any idea that things would get so much bigger so fast!

I'd been looking for awhile (halfheartedly) for actors to be in the film. It's only six minutes long, one day of shooting, two people to cast. I figured, who wouldn't want to do it? Good question, but I was too shy to ask so I never found out the answer...

...or wouldn't have if my director didn't keep bugging me (in a good way) in asking whether or not I'd found a cast yet.

So I emailed my local community theatre, asking if they'd pass on a casting call for the film from me to people they know that fit the roles.

The next day, I got seven emails and phonecalls.

Wow.

We set up auditions, which took place yesterday and this morning and I recorded them so that the director (who is far away from me, too far to come for auditions) could look the people over and do casting. We think we've made choices. Isn't that great?

I was so pleasantly surprised that so many people WANTED to be in the film that I wrote. It's a cool feeling to be sought after. Don't worry, though. I won't fall in love with it. I'll seek fulfillment in God-- but prayers that I do won't hurt.

Now I've got to find a computer of my own to bring to the shoot (and to college in September) and a boom microphone. Yikes! This should be interesting. Oh, life and me. You're so inventive.

-Tina

p.s.

And also. I figured writing two posts in a row would be pretty ridiculous. So I'd like to mention my bucket list right here, linking up with Polka Dot @ (life is too short not to) wear red shoes. She's having a marvelous, exciting giveaway which you can learn all about here.

Trying not to be one-dimensional here with only film things...

1. write a film and have it adapted to screen and retain the awesomeness of the writing
2. write a film and have steven spielberg direct it
3. visit owl city in owatonna; bring choco tacos, a portable piano, and Skylie.
4. live a year each in Ireland, England, and Wales, not necessarily all in a row
5. meet the pope
6. be brave enough to not start conversations with fluff talk
7. go mountain climbing as a regular hobby
8. learn how to fly a military plane
9. meet george lucas
10. wield a lightsaber as it is meant to be wielded

so. :)

My life be like...

It's good, that's for sure. I lost sight of it all the time, but yep, there it is when I bother myself to actually look.

I filmed a MOVIE this past weekend. Yes, my friends. It was an honest-to-goodness short film. How do you differ between a home movie and our awesomeness of a film? Regard the list:

• We had a camera that's actually HD and not crappy and uses little tapes
• We had a boom (a BOOM, I tell you!) and external sound equipment which sounds SO nice
• We hired actors (we didn't pay them, but they weren't just, say, my mom) and they actually came
• We didn't know the actors before they came (except one, but that was a change in plans--more on that later)
• I bought lunch for my workers and did not send them home to get lunch, or tell them to bring lunch
• We had an actual location, not just my house
• I was working with a director! AAAAH!

And on the list goes! It was such an experience, and I never want to forget it. I usually get so stressed out about these things. I even forget to breathe properly (if you want to reference an old post of mine) and hyperventilate. This time it was different. I think it was because I had an awesome, most splendid director who has been a part of/worked on the crew of what I define as REAL films before. She was so helpful, and I'd like to think we helped each other, too.

Filming was crazy, of course. The actor we hired (whom we didn't know) came to location, found the doors locked (she was supposed to call us to have us let her in, cause we were there) and turned around and went home. This would be fine, except for she lived an hour away. We didn't have a cell phone number with which to contact her, and by the time we did the runaround through my director's mom to get it, she was 45 minutes away. And she couldn't come back.

MAJOR setback! We had location and an actor for this ONE DAY. Our other actor wasn't coming. Solution? Get your friend who was supposed to do continuity for the day to play the part! Crazy lines memorization and lots of frenzy ensues.

It worked out well, though, and the director and I were really surprised at HOW well. It was one of those instances where we were basically, "God, this is yours. We give it to you; it'll work out the way you want it to."

I loved filming, every minute. Being a producer this time around was great. Five hours filming for a five minute film was great. And doing post production this week? That is and will be great too.

I'd love prayers anyhow, though! This is a big business, it is, it is!

-Tina, Producer extraordinaire! :D

All things in moderation?

Temperance is a funny thing. I've been working at balance in my life, and I seem to suffer from having too much of one thing and not enough of others. For example, I spend a whole lotta time on a really great site called NarniaWeb. The site is amazing. The five hours I spend there instead of doing other things is not.

I do love to do useful things. I know that sounds incredibly boring, but bear with me. I love the feeling at the end of the day when you look back and see that you really helped your mom with the housework, or finished some bit of schoolwork, or got writing done (if you're a writer, like me). That feeling is just one of satisfaction. For me, I go: "I actually didn't waste my day today! I did stuff that mattered, that change the way I'll be living tomorrow and in the future!" I don't exactly think like that, but that's the feeling in words.

Unfortunately, one of the reasons that the feeling is special right now is because it doesn't happen all the time. One of my goals lately has been to live each day well. Not okay, not acceptable. Just really well. It's really hard. I do too much of stupid stuff and not enough of the important stuff. Sometimes I really fall flat on my face and then I think at night, before I go to bed, "What in the world was I thinking? I was an idiot!"

To go off on another tangent from the title, I wanted to talk about movie content. I want to be a screenwriter, like I've said before in other posts, and I've been thinking a lot about my mission in that and just movies in general.

I have kind of really high standards for movies. My sisters don't share many of my opinions. The sister just above me, in particular, asks me to watch movies a lot and I'll look up the movies online to see what the lowdown is, especially on pluggedin.com. Mostly, I'll decide against watching the movie because it looks like it has a lot of vulgarity in it. My sister makes the case that, if I want to be a screenwriter, I have to watch all kinds of movies, not just the ones I think I'll think.

This is a bit of an issue for me. I don't agree with her completely. I mean, I can see that watching movies and listening to scripts can help you understand how to write them, but what if this movie is very lewd? What if the mindset of the characters towards pre-marital sex is very casual?

I don't know about you guys, but I have a very difficult time with sexuality in movies. It's a very big occasion of sin for me, and I know it. So do I go in to watch the movie, knowing what's there and knowing that it could lead me into sin? My stance is NO. I may not have watched the movie before, but if I know there's crap scattered all through the movie, I'm not gonna see it.

What do you all think, I wonder?

-Tina

ZIP!

Right now is the time to write a super-quick post before bed!

I'm updating you on the status of my film and the film festival. I finished the film the day after I wrote the last post about it, and editing was finished roughly...lastthursday. I cut it pretty close because the film was due on friday. Yep, I was slow!

Anyhow, my film got accepted! It's to be shown along with other films at a local movie theatre. I wonder if it'll be shown on the big screen? Who knows. I'm hoping to have a marvelous time, and I'm very excited about the whole affair already.

I don't want to get my hopes up, but I hope that I place at least.

Goodnight!

-Tina

Can't breathe...

Without you. But I have to.

Just thought I'd do a post title that was completely unrelated to the content of my post. 'Cause while I DO have "Breathe" by Taylor Swift stuck in my head, my mind is running more in the direction of filmmaking than of country music.

Today was the second day of filming for a movie that my friends and I are making. Believe you me, It was nuts. I went into the venture vowing not to become stressed because I was the director, and then, wouldn't you know it, I got stressed about trying not to be stressed about being the director. Seems as though I can't win, eh?

Perhaps a better plan would have been to accept that I would get stressed, but to have plans for dealing with it rather than trying frantically to keep it out of my head. We got alot done, though; only four scenes left to film.

The movie is called The Wishing Well, by the way. It's a little script that I wrote up, inspired by some great books by Edward Eager. I must admit, I had alot more fun writing the script than directing the movie. After the crazy, "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ACTION!" day was finished and I was feeling about as tightly wound as a kite string, I wondered why exactly I didn't like directing as much as I thought I would. I think I've figured it out.

ONE: I was not merely directing. I was deciding who got recorded, and where every shot would be taken. I was being the cinematographer as well as the director. Cinematographer=add on extra work and stress.

TWO: I was recording the shots, being the camera woman as well as the director and cinematographer. Camera woman=add on more work and stress.

THREE: I was not only recording the shots. We only have one camera, and in order for the shots to look nice and have different shots per scene, we had to move the camera and often record the same scene again. And again. And again. So technically, I was a team of camera people. Team of camera people= add on lots more work and stress.

So what does that add up to? A grumpy Tina at the end of the day. I suppose that this blog post is just a complaint soaked internet page. But then and again, I think it really does do me good to write out my feelings- so maybe one complaint soaked internet page will ensure that there will be less complaint soaked internet pages in the future. And maybe that makes my title make sense in a weird way:

Perhaps I have to keep taking deep breaths and calm myself down. Or maybe its that I have to accept the stress that I've got and work through it. You know, how Taylor Swift can't breathe without her man, but she has to? Heh heh, yeah...

Anyhow, have a good night, and wish us luck on filming tomorrow!

-Tina

Film Festival and other filming goody things!

Last blog post (yeah, it was last year ;) and more than a month ago, sorry!) I mentioned a film contest that, then, would be happening in a month or so. The month has passed!

I made a short 8 minute 30 second long film for the library film festival- It's called The Principal's Office. My friend Tori and I made a film like it while we were bored at her dad's office building one day. Here's a video of part of it so you can get the gist. My other friend Grace and I made a new version, with new characters and a plot twist at the very end! I'll post the youtube link on here to show it to you guys once it's up there.

SO! The film contest is in a coupla weeks and I really, really hope my film gets in. I wanted to enter the contest last year, but I didn't because I just put it off and put it off... Yeah :P. Pretty lazy of me, I know. It'd be super awesome if my film won a prize- People's Best of Show gets $100, which isn't shabby at all, and the other prizes are $75 and $50.

Wish me luck! I'll try to get some graphics up later.

-Tina