Nearing the End...

Hey everyone!

Well, once again I have gotten busy and not blogged as regularly as promised. So I'm super sorry for that, but here's your newest update on the life of the student filmmaker. 

Production week is over. I can't even tell everyone how insanely much fun I had doing production. Ten minutes into the first day on the first set I was promoted to First Camera Assistant, which means that I am attached to the cinematographer and make sure that everything he needs is taken care of. I took light readings, focus measurements, held the camera when he got tired. It was a crazy amount of work, but I had a blast. The cinematographer I worked with that day, Jonathon, was also going to be cinematographer for another group, so I was asked to be their camera assistant too! Which I guess means I did a good job. Being assistant director was less fun, but I still really enjoyed the shoot for that group. Basically, I worked insane hours and got very little sleep and had a blast for ten days. 

Shooting our project was different. Erika and I decided early on that the traditional titles of "director" and "cinematographer" didn't really work for us, so we both did both jobs. The first day of our shoot was indoors (shot at the boys' apartment upstairs, for which we are eternally grateful to them), and that day I acted as cinematographer and did all the work with the camera, while Erika communicated with the actors and got the scenes ready. We worked really really well together and wrapped two hours early, which for any non-filmmakers in the audience is very very good. We even got one shot that had originally been planned for the second day. Woot! Our second day went equally smoothly. We were shooting outdoors at one of the most beautiful cemeteries in Prague. The sunlight was on our side and clouds would cover when we needed things to be dark and gloomy and then the sun would peek right back out when we got to the nicer-looking things. You can't ask for better weather than we got for that day. It was awesome, and we were done by 1:00pm. We said farewell and thank you to our amazing actors, unloaded some equipment, and got some sleep for the next day's shoot. 

Since shooting week ended, life has become somewhat calmer. I developed a chest cold, possibly just from being outside for shooting and not getting enough sleep. Someday I will learn how to take care of myself better for production, but I'm not really all that sick, so no complaints here. However, we all got our footage back from the lab and have been busily compiling rough cuts of our film to show our editing mentor. His name is Henry Hills (sounds pretty American, right? Well he is! He's from Colorado, actually), and he's a blast. He helped Erika and I originally just because neither of us was super confident on the editing software. I like him a lot and I can't wait to work with him. We are working with another American professor, Eric Rosensweig, as our sound mentor. He's helping us develop a soundscape for our films. I like post-production. Not as much as filming, but it's still fun, and I like seeing the film come together. 

So, here's what's next for me. I come home in TWELVE days!!! In between now and then, I have to write two essays for classes and finish my film with Erika. Our screening is on December 18th, early in the morning, which is a little strange, but all will be well. In two days, my best friend Joel is coming to visit from England, where he's studying at Oxford this year. I'm psyched to see him!!! He'll be here until the 14th, and then he heads back to Jolly Old to finish the academic year there. Then, on the 15th, my DAD comes out! He's coming to see the screening and fly home with me! I cannot even tell everyone how nice it will be to have some tastes of home with me during the last two weeks. I also can't explain how excited I am to get to come home soon. I have loved this semester, but I miss everyone at home so much and I can't wait to be back in the States. 

Well, that's Prague these days for you all. I hope everyone at home is doing well. I am busily compiling some cool, Prague-ian Christmas gifts for everyone, so if you have something specific in mind, please let me know. I miss you all and can't wait to see everyone! 

Loves!

Christy

Pre-production

Hey everyone,

Well, once again it’s been too long in between updates, and there is a bunch of stuff I need to fill you guys in on.

So, first of all, everyone came back from their various locations safe and sound, and it was really nice to have our little family together again. Really, I was almost surprised at how glad I was to have people home. We lucked out and got a group that gets along really, really well.

Then, and this is one of my favorite parts, my Mom came into town for the weekend! I was so excited to see her, and to get some family time. It’s been difficult to go so long without seeing my family, after living in such close proximity to them these first two years of college. So, we went and did some touristy stuff, like seeing the castle and Old Town Square. I loved showing her a little of the city I live in. Also, I think she liked Prague a lot, which means a lot to me! Then, we spent a day just puttering around the hotel and spending time together, which was amazing, and so refreshing for me. It was almost like getting to come home for a weekend break. I loved it. She headed home when the weekend was over, and also got home safe and sound.

Since Mom left, it’s been pretty much time to crack down on getting this film made. My big “Topics in Production” class ended last week, and we took a comprehensive final exam for it last Friday. I did well on the exam, which I’m thankful for, since it is a large part of my final grade. So, now that we’re done with the class portion of the program, we’re all heading into pre-production. I still have to attend my elective classes, “Circulating Within the Modern Cinematic Image” and “Script Analysis/Script for Directors”.  However, besides the occasional mentoring session, I don’t have any other classes. We work with each of our mentors four times over the next two weeks. They’re helping us develop storyboards and figure out easy shooting schedules. It’s been a lot of fun, and something I’ve never done before.

This part of the program has been a little crazy. Everything has intensified, from the amount of stress to the amount of fun. I have had some late nights working on our script and preparing storyboards, as well as some awesome meetings with actors. We’ve cast a drama student from the local theater school named Ivan as our leading man. He is amazing, and it has been a blast working with him so far. I am SO excited to shoot.

The non-film, non-school part of my life has pretty much ceased to exist lately. The free time that our group has outside of school and film has mostly been about getting things ready for shooting. Rather than going out lately, we’ve been staying in and having game nights (I taught everyone here Mao, which they love) and movie nights. Those are a blast, and I love getting to see great films with awesome people who appreciate them the way I do.

As far as the next few weeks go, Erika and I shoot the 24^th and 25^th of November (which some of you may notice is in NINE days), so any prayers that you can be offering up for our production would be much appreciated. During that week, all five groups film their projects, and I am involved crew-wise in all of the other shoots. My roles include focus-puller (a technical film thing- basically I make sure the shots are in focus the way they are supposed to be), a continuity watcher (I make sure that the actors are doing the same thing for each take. Those who have seen a film with poor continuity with me before know how crazy it makes me and thus that I will be good at this job), an Assistant Director/Translator (one of the groups has an actress who speaks French and very little English, so I’m going to use my language skills to help communicate things for her), and a Nanny! That’s right. My friend Allison is going to have a few little kids on her set, so I have been asked to use my experience with that age group to keep them entertained and focused on the project in between takes and during any breaks they get. Woot! I’m excited for that one a lot!

So, sorry about this being a novel, I’m just not sure if I’ll get a chance to update next week and I wanted to let everyone in on what’s going on for me. I miss everyone, and I can’t wait to see you all soon. I hope everything at home is going well.
Love,

Christy

Recuperation!

Hello everyone,

            Well, you’re catching me at an interesting moment in my experience abroad. We, the students of CIEE/FAMU International, have been granted a five-day weekend, sort of a surrogate Thanksgiving break for a country that doesn’t actually celebrate Thanksgiving. Most of the eleven of us chose to head out of the country. Some went to Budapest, Hungary, others to Italy (both Venice and Rome), and one to Geneva, Switzerland. Even our Czech flatmates have vacated, taking advantage of the gift of free time. The only of us left in Prague are myself and my new, good friend Allison. That’s right, just the two of us. We chose to stay here, taking a cue from Jonathan Swift, who suggested that anyone interested in travel start by exploring their own bedroom in depth before even heading to the kitchen.

            So far, we have welcomed the weekend with open arms. There is a lot to do, from surveying the as-yet unseen niches of Prague itself to allowing ourselves some moments of tourism for the sites of the city. Also, this weekend, I’m hoping to do some location scouting for my film, finding the most cinematic areas for our shooting. I may even get through a first draft of Erika’s and my script. Finally, Allison and I are looking forward to some well-earned rest and peace in our suddenly empty flats. We started things off with a, well, not quite a bang, last night with an outing searching for dessert (the Czech Republic could really use an IHOP) and a chick-flick, followed by a morning of sleeping in. Like I said, I think we’re both most excited about the prospect of resting up from the first half of semester. I am equally excited about spending some serious bonding time with Allison. We’ve been getting pretty close, and I relish the thought of having basically uninterrupted hang out time this weekend.

            School has been pretty exhausting lately. As we approach the end of our Topics in Production classes and head towards making our projects, the pressure is beginning to build. Deadlines creep towards us, from script dates to papers for our elective classes to presentations and midterm exams. I love all of my classes, especially the difficult ones. My cinematography class, for instance, makes me constantly question what I know about light meters, exposure speeds, frames-per-second (all terribly technical film elements that I’m expected to know off the top of my head by the end of this). The professor, a well-known Czech cinematographer named Michal Gahut, will ask the class a question, which is always followed by a moment of absolute silence as we all wrack our brains for the correct answer. I tend to think of it as a game of Tetris, with falling bits of information that must be turned and manipulated before you know where they should go.

            I absolutely adore the challenge here, even on the technical things, but MAN, does that all make the school day tiring. I tend to leave the school week wiped out, using the weekends to rest and study for the next week’s adventures.

            As far as our film projects go, Erika and I are chugging right along. Our final literary script is due by November 5, and we’re working diligently on getting it together. We’ve been assigned our technical mentor, a man named Jaromír Sofr who is a fabulous Czech cinematographer when he isn’t busy teaching at FAMU. Also, we were given our directing mentor, who is named Pavel Marek. He is currently our directing professor through our Topics in Production class (convenient, I know), as well as being a working Czech director of his own films. I like them both very much, and I’m excited to get feedback from such professionals. We’re also working with editing and sound professors to get to know the technology we’ll need in post-production.

            Even outside of working on our projects, Erika and I are spending quite a bit of time together. She is extremely cool, and I love hanging out with her. We’ve learned that we share a love of comic book heroes and their respective movies, and she’s introducing me to some pretty interesting horror films that I’m sure I wouldn’t have gotten to see otherwise. What generally ends up happening is that we begin a day together, working on our script or going to class, and then we “barnacle” onto each other and spend the entire day hanging out. I enjoy it, and making such good friends here makes it so much easier to be away from home.

            Well, enough of a novel for now. I will be sure to update this as the weekend proceeds, as I’m sure it will be full of interesting travels in our new home city. My mom arrives in Prague in SIX days, and I am SO excited to see her and have a little taste of home. Hope everything state-side is well. I’ll be home soon.

Christy

Crazy Week!!

Hey there!

Well, it’s been quite a week. So sorry it’s been a while, but I’ll do my best to catch everyone up.

Friday morning we had our first Pitching session. This is where we presented the story ideas that we’d been working on to our professors. Then they have the opportunity to tell us what works and what doesn’t work, as well as give us some creative suggestions. Then (and this was the scary part), they decide whether or not to pass our idea. If it gets their OK, we get our budget and can go ahead with pre-production (writing a script, working on storyboards, etc). However, if they think the idea is weak or just plain not interesting, they reject it. Then the group would have to go back to the drawing board and work out another idea, or make serious changes to the one they’re working with.

So, Erika and I gave our pitch, answered some creative questions on what exactly our vision was for the film, and defended some of the choices we made that we didn’t feel comfortable changing. Based on all of that, they passed us! One or two of our professors even got very passionate about our ideas, which was AWESOME considering that they are professionals that have worked in the Czech film industry for years! The next step for us is that we are assigned a faculty Directing Mentor and a faculty Technical Mentor, and we start to nail down a script for the project. More to come on our mentors and our progress as it happens.
Then, Saturday morning we left early on a bus to Moravia, which is a region in the very southeast of the country, almost on the border with Slovakia. This was our big overnight trip, and it was so much fun! The bus ride to Zlín- the town we were visiting- was about three and a half hours. I got pretty carsick on the way there, but just because it was such a windy road. Once in Zlín, we visited a animation studio and school, and got to meet with one of the professors there. He showed us some of the animation techniques they teach at the school, and we watched some student projects. Then, that night, we went to a wine tasting where I learned that I do not like wine at all, in any form. Oh well, I guess you can’t win them all. The next morning we hiked up to Buchlov Castle through the most beautiful wood I’ve ever seen. Really and truly, I would almost have expected something crazy like a unicorn to walk through the trees to us. I loved it!

After visiting the castle, we hopped back on the bus and came home. Totally exhausted, I slept through the whole ride back, and then promptly went to bed when we got home. It was a great trip, but I’m glad to be back to the routine.

Well, that’s enough adventures in Central Europe for one week. I hope you all are doing well, and I miss everyone at home tons.

Love,

Christy

Been a few weeks...

Sorry that there was so long between posts, guys. I had no idea how busy things would get once I started my film classes. So here's the update for you all!

I really, really, really love my classes. I have never been in such an academically challenging film environment, and it is amazing! The teachers here at FAMU are professional filmmakers, which means that they know huge amounts about what they're teaching. For me, that equals the most intelligent, helpful feedback I have ever gotten. My "Topics in Production" classes are all starting with seemingly basic information, but building on it in ways that have opened my mind to a whole new way of thinking about film. Plus, they're challenging us to think of smart, engaging stories for our projects, and helping us shape really great films. I think I've learned more about the technical side of building a story in these two weeks than I've gotten out of any English class. It really is nice to be pushed this hard with film. So I'm working really hard and studying a lot, but enjoying it more than I ever have before. 

Also, I have partnered up with a girl named Erika to make our film project. She's really nice and *very* smart. So I have spent a lot of time with her in the last few days, working on building a story for our film. Erika has a lot of theater background, which makes it fun for me to work with her because I get a whole new perspective on our work. 

Socially, I am still loving Prague. I have gone out dancing a few times in the last week or so with some of the people in my program, and it was a blast. Also, we've had a few movie nights so far, sharing films that we love and seeing new ones (some that I've never even heard of). It's so nice that the people in my program are all from very different backgrounds and come from different places all over the country. These are people that I never would have really had the chance to meet, let alone get close to, in Boulder. I have loved getting to know everyone a little better through classes and living together. 

I guess that's all that's been going on this week. I'm still working on setting up a photo site, so that should be put together within the next week. I miss everyone at home, but I'm having so much fun here. I can't wait to see you all in December and hear about all the fun things I'm missing this semester. I hope all is going well for you guys!

Love,

Christy

Fall Schedule 2008!!

Hey everyone,

Well, FAMU and CIEE got their stuff together and gave us a final list of the film classes we can take this semester, and after some careful consideration and arguing with them about why I can't take 4 electives (apparently it would be too heavy of a course load), I have chosen my classes! So here's what my schedule will look like for the first part of the semester. Remember, eight weeks in I basically stop taking classes to work on my film. So there you have it. 

Monday

12:20-1:55~ Camera and Film Language

5:20-6:55~ Cinematography

Tuesday

1:10-2:45~ Editing (doesn't start until the 5th week of class)

6:10-7:45~ Script for Directors

Wednesday

9:50-11:25~ Acting

2:50-4:25~ Directing A

6:10-7:45~ Script Analysis

7:50-9:25~ Directing B

Thursday

8:15-9:45~ Theory of Acting 

9:50-11:25~ Screenwriting

2:00-5:00~ Circulating Within the Modern Cinematic Image

So here's your key:

Green classes are all technically one course. They're parts of a class called "Topics in Production", which is supposed to give us the knowledge we need to make our films. They're basically what we call core courses at home. 

Blue classes are also technically one course. Taught by two different professors, but I only get to take credits for them home if I take them together. They're my bachelor-level elective. 

The purple class is my master-level elective. Taught by a professor from Oxford, which is basically why I'm in it, because that is just awesome. 

The red class is one that I'm auditing. It means that I get to go, but I can't get any credit for it. This was their concession to my arguing about not getting to take very many electives. 

Well, that's all! Pictures to come, I PROMISE. I'm figuring out how to attach a photo album to the blog, but it's proving to be a little to technologically challenging for me. 

I love you guys and hope everything at home is going well. See you at Christmas!

Christino (what I'm called here. It's supposed to be affectionate.)

Week Two!

Hey everyone,

Well, the internet situation here at V Jircharich 6 has been patchy at best, but I'm still going to do my best to keep up with everyone. 

I have been doing an intensive language orientation for the last week and a half, which has been awesome. Czech is by far the hardest language I have ever tried, but I'm having a lot of fun. Our teacher is named Jana (pronounced Yah-nah), and she is really nice. She always tells us that we are doing "vyrborne" (excellent), even when we are clearly massacring the language. However, we are making some progress considering the difficulty level of the class and how intense this course has been. We do around 4 hours of Czech a day and then have our afternoons free. I am finally feeling maybe proficient enough to make it in this country :-).

Monday I start some of my film classes, and then the rest the Monday after that. I am really excited to get going on my film, and I'm already working through some scripting. Basically, things school-wise have been going really well. I can't wait to get in the full swing of school here. 

This week I felt a little homesick, but I am putting together some home stuff (pictures and letters from people that I got before I came) on a bulletin board for my room here, and I think that will really help. I'm making some really great friends already, and having a lot of fun exploring the city. I'm sorry this blog is pretty short, but not a whole lot has happened. I'm going to try to get some pictures from my trip on here, so that you can see what I'm up to. 

So there you have it. I'm hoping that all is well state-side, and I can't wait to hear about how everyone is doing. 

Love and love and love,

Christy