Priapus Productions Presents!

My favorite class this semester has been Technical Intro to Video Production, which is just what it sounds like - basic film making. I've really enjoyed the creative outlet this class has provided as well as the hands-on approach. I'm sorry that this is the only such class available to film minors, because I'd really like to expand on what I've learned.

Our first few weeks were spent learning the basics and getting into groups. No one in our group was experienced in this at all, so we had to figure out how to use the cameras (with no manuals) and so on and so forth from scratch.

We began to do one project a week. The first was simple Edison/Lumiere type stuff to show that we could actually point a camera at something and let light into it. The next few weeks were spent with exercises in different types of shots, different camera angles/movements, and various vectors. Most of them did not have storylines and the one that did isn't worth reviewing. In fact, I don't have copies of those early projects.

This film is the first one where nothing in particular was requested, but we had to show several things that we'd learned by then. We had one week to do it, and of course we all had other classes and lives, so the whole thing,throughout the week, was cobbled together over six or seven hours total. We did all the shooting in one afternoon, with few second takes. This is the second project where we had to edit, and the first where we put a lot of work into it. We not only edited the scenes together, but we also replaced all the sound with music and "special effects." We still were kind of groping in the dark, though, as will be obvious to you when you see the title!!!!! You see, while editing is essential to success in this class,it isn't actually part of the curriculum, so we had to figure it out with minimal instruction. Whee! It was fun and the professor was impressed with the progress we'd made since the lame early projects from just a few weeks before when we were still figuring the camera out.

The next project will be done in a couple weeks and has been in progress for over a month. It has a lot more time and effort going into it, but I'll talk about that when I have it finished and can post it.

In the meantime, here is my directorial debut, No Smoking.