March and April are busy months for film festivals in South Carolina, which is ironic, because that’s when the weather is the most amazing, so who wants to sit in a theater all day?  Anyway, since Brian and I had never been to a film festival before, these local ones were the perfect opportunity to see how things work before we (hopefully) attend festivals as official selections.  Plus it was a chance to scope out the films and filmmakers we will be competing against in the future. 

We watched the shorts programming blocks at the Charleston Film Festival, the Charleston International Film Festival, and the Indie Grits Film Fest.  I had never really watched short films before we started to make ours (I know, shame on me!), but now I’m hooked.  I love the economy of storytelling and the way it’s possible to deliver such powerful emotion (whether it’s laughter, thrills, or tears) in such a short time.  I know I’ve done this backwards, since you’re supposed to study the craft before attempting to make your own short, and I’ve learned so much by watching the shorts at these festivals.  I’ve seen what works to pull the audience in (funny is better) and what doesn’t work so well (don’t be pretentious).  As we refine the final edit, I’m applying what I’ve learned, and I’m already itching to get started on a new project. 
 

My day job is working as a quality assurance analyst at a software company, which means I’m paid to nitpick other people’s work.  Add to that the fact I had a very clear picture in my head when I first wrote the short story, and poor Cliff didn’t know what he was getting himself into when he joined our team. 

Today we made another editing pass on Putty Gone Bad, and I came to the session armed with pages of “suggestions” for making the movie even better (keep in mind that I know nothing about editing).  Luckily, Cliff was a patient teacher and walked me through all the items on my list.  In many places, I saw the wisdom of the choices he had made; in other places, he agreed that my suggestion worked better.  In the process, I learned so much about all the things an editor has to be mindful of when fitting the plethora of puzzle pieces together into the prettiest picture.  I actually had fun getting to dip my hands back into the creative part of making the movie, and I hope I didn’t drive Cliff too crazy.

All of the scenes in Eunice’s room are pretty emotional, so Rebecca and Edith had some heavy lifting to do today.  Although for the second part of the day, Eunice was in a coma, so Edith just had to lie in bed.  But the way she did it – yikes!  Makeup had done a great job making her look like she was at death’s door, and she got so still, never reacting to anything around her… not the grips moving equipment, not the cat being wrangled, not the calls for action and cut.  After the scene was done and everyone was moving out of the room, I actually worried that maybe something terrible had happened to Miss Edith, but then she popped out of bed as her usual vivacious self.  It was kind of freaky.

Well, at least one of us did.  I can only be seen in the background for half a second, but Brian did a great job representing us.  I think both Brian and Cliff really conveyed the passion and excitement all of us have for this project and what an incredible learning experience this is for the students.  Check out the clip here.

At some point, most little girls dream of becoming an actress.  Not this girl!  The thought of performing in front of people has always made me queasy, but today I had to suck it up and deal.  Up until now, all the auditions have been through emailed recordings, but today we had a few local ladies come in to Genesis to read for the main parts.  Since I was the only other female in the room, I was “volunteered” to read the other parts, which just happened to be for women.  While I found it interesting to watch the live auditions, being in them was a different story.  I don’t know how actors do it – it felt like the camera was burning a hole in me. And kudos to the auditioning ladies who did such a great job acting opposite me as I completely stunk up the joint.