life sucks sometimes, and other times it all works out...

Last week wasn't too great. I had a hard week from finding out I didn't make director to all the boy drama. Two of my friends dropped out of the director race. I am sad they aren't at least giving it a go. They took one of the coveted slots and now they aren't even pitching. Oh well. I guess if I hadn't found a script I felt passionate about it would be difficult to try to act enthusiastic in front of the faculty.

This week has been gruelling, but somehow everything has worked out. I filmed my 475 final directing project last night. I was so stressed leading up to it. I was freaking out about the location, about my actors awful performances, figuring out if I could get it on a medium to edit, etc. Monday night I couldn't sleep because I was so stressed. But somehow things seemed to fall together. After 3 rehearsals, I felt like the actors were finally figuring things out. I didn't feel they were really right for the parts, but it wasn't a train wreck. The hours leading up to the shoot I was freaking out. I was super nervous. I ran around a bit collecting equipment and then had to drive up to Palos Verdes to meet John, whose house we were going to film at. On the way up, he tells me that he found this perfect house for me to film at that would prevent us from having to move locations. Their backyard turned out to be absolutely FABULOUS. It was so gorgeous, overlooking a cliff with the city spread out behind it. So they boys set up the first scene and it looks great, really dynamic and interesting.

We had a minor setback when we learned that the boom mic was broken! Ahhh! I was freaking out. I called my friend Ken who also does sound for 480. He told me he had passed the kit off to Adrian his partner, but managed to get a hold of Adrian who was willing to let me use the kit. So then I call Sonya and beg her to drive it up for me. She graciously agreed. She was supposed to have a meeting with the producer for her music video, Tyler. I told her she should have their meeting while driving up to see me....they could even ride in the carpool lane then! She agreed. I absolutely love her.

The scene went really well. I didn't give too many directions and felt like I wasn't doing much. But the boys kind of took over and decided what it was that we needed. I should have been a little more vocal, but I felt a tad intimidated by their amazingness...and was shy to say too much. I know that isn't how I should be, but I trusted them a lot and I figured the actors weren't going to improve much after all this time of working with them. They were doing fine and I just gave them a few notes here and there. At one point Roham asked me if he could give them a direction and told them something that I had been trying to get them to do for ages on our last practice and was quite difficult....they did it slightly better.

I was really paranoid by the end of the shoot because when we were setting up for the second scene this grumpy neighbor lady yelled at us telling us to be quiet. We tried really hard to be as quiet as possible, but I was soooo paranoid that she was going to call the cops that I rushed things along at a very quick pace, not really paying as much attention to performance as I perfect should have (this was when Roham jumped in).
Oh well I will try to be a little more bold and less worried next time!

Roham was so fabulous through this whole thing. I really can't believe he did all this for me. On the way home, at like 3AM, he scratched my head softly as I drove. I should have been doing that for him...he did most of the hard work! Then he held my hand, and it felt so nice...just what I needed after a stressful week.

I didn't get home til almost 4AM and had to wake up at 8AM to go work on Sonya's music video. At the first location I got to be an extra in her music video as a patron watching a concert. Then I went and did a bit of Production Design for her at another location. It was really fun. The music vid part had tons of people there! And they even had this crazy jib arm thing!

Now I am quite tired and have to settle down and work on my stupid writing 340 paper and production design project. ICK.