Inner-City Filmmakers Day 6, Week Two

Today was a lot more festive. Directing class wasn't as interesting as the first but by no means was it boring. Cinematography class won out today, though. We got to shoot a scene and even though I wasn't in the forefront as the Director, Director of Photography, or Camera Operator, it was exciting to create a scene with a whole student crew but it really does come out through the director and if they director is not clear it really is hard to understand what he or she wants. I've never seen that from the outside in this perspective before. Whoopi took the reigns of director on the short project we did. During Whoopi vs. SilentBat, that was my area and he was the assistant or producer or camera operator or actor and a lot of times people would look confused while I was directing and I was just like "why don't you get it, I'm explaining it simply and easily." Now I see how specific one has to be when directing. We must all think that nothing is obvious ever.

Later that night we had a guest speaker come in named Nelson Coates (look him up on imdb) and he was really amazing. He is a production designer which, after his speech, seems to be one of the most demanding jobs in the industry. What he has to do is overlook the whole design of a film from the costumes to the visual effects, making sure it all works out best to tell the story. That was a great theme not just today but for most times our mentors speak to us. With directing class it's about telling the story through performances, with cinematography it's about telling the story through camera shots, with editing it's about telling the story through the order of shots. It's all about the story, that's the basis, that's what it's all about. Period. But, back to Mr. Coates. He had a lot of energy, and I loved that. While he was in a part of the industry I was not intersted in, I appreciated him more than Grigg from last week because he had an enthusiasm that spoke to me. Now I'm not saying for a second that Bob Grigg was not into his profession but Coates had such a dedication to his occupation and making it the very best it could be that it floored me. Some of the things he did were just amazing and most times it would just be scrapped.

So all and all, good day. Tomorrow is more about our scripts, so we'll see.

Peace