Posts tagged ‘works and process’
Hold that train!
Await with grace
Photo shoot with Micky Su. Dancer Briana Christian.
My Life, Measured in a Million Minor Victories
A week ago I helped draft a letter to a very busy reporter. Receiving somewhere around 300 emails a day, I imagine, the probability of our pitch succeeding was a long shot. This particular reporter and I had never interacted, never established a rapport. In fact, she wasn’t even on my media list until minutes before I sent her an email.
Yet the fact that she opened it, and the fact that she read it, told me I had done at least two things right. 1. Wrote an effective subject line and 2. Wrote an interesting lead. The lead is what some people in the reporting business refer to as the “opening sentence.”
Now the fact that we were mentioned, is a major source of joy and celebration in my modest life. At this time I’d like to thank the little people :)
All Things Are Possible Through Education
Jerry Guo taught an awesome Skillshare class last year, called How to get profiled in The New York Times. Our mention, although, not technically a “profile,” was assisted made possible by having taken his Skillshare class.
In short, I learned to be targeted, be succinct and be brief. At this point, I’ve taken over 39 hours of continuing education classes through Skillshare. (I am also an SEO instructor.) Yet his instance was probably the greatest example of a Skillshare class – literally – paying off. In ticket sales for WHITE WAVE Dance Company, that is!
So thank you, Jerry. And thank you, Skillshare. Learning from you makes my life better.
See our dance listing in The Times.
Adding to my recent Dear Mom posts on launching a website and learning Photoshop, I thought I’d do another with a little more info on my new gig at WHITE WAVE.
This month I’ve been focusing on development, specifically:
- donor relations, interfacing with Kickstarter backers in particular
- grant research (exciting!)
- lots of writing, perhaps most notably a sponsorship request form – the first piece of content under my sole authorship
The main challenge has been communicating succinctly. It took me one week, for instance, to draft and get approval for a deceptively simple one-pager. To give a taste, I’m proud of crafting something as simple as the following sound byte:
In 2012 WHITE WAVE will present the works of over 200 dance companies and 850 performing artists, and captivate an audience of over 10,500 people.
Tomorrow’s going to be jam-packed, the first work day of a brand new month and the onset of the season’s full festivities. It’s also the first day of fall dance classes, as well as my initial meeting with the former development director. Not to mention a gala we have to plan and hold regularly scheduled meetings for, starting next week. Am I missing anything? ;)
I’m happy. Really, I’m happy with the work. WHITE WAVE is my official splash into the NYC dance seen and although I didn’t quite land the exact role I was looking for as a nonprofit community manager, I’m doing alright for myself.
If you’re in NYC, you won’t want to miss our free dance performances this September. See you there.
Master of the Camera
Frank Wang is one of those “master teachers” on Skillshare. I much needed and completely loved his recent class on getting familiar with dSLR cameras.
When I tried to teach myself how to be fancy with a camera, I often got intimidated by the vocabulary. Frank made this class super basic and easy to understand. I even got to take home the following infographic (gag! infographic).
Photo Living in the Stills
Settings Save the Day
The photos I’m trying to take are actually some of the most difficult subjects you can capture – fast moving people in a dim-light room. The major takeaway from Frank’s class was: Play with the ISO. I think I’m so cool now!
Looking forward to what’s next. Still need to buy some gear, including a tripod and external drive. Baby steps, as they say. One thing’s certain: Auto-mode is no longer allowed. Gotta work my way up to shooting a dSLR like a boss!
Dear Mom, Here’s What I Did This Weekend
Once again, I have more excuses for not updating my blog. Here’s why: I spent close to 16 hours working on a new website this weekend. (Twelve of those hours were today. I know. Intense, right?!) Can’t wait to show you.
For now, I’ll just tease you with this sepia-touched photo that’s part of the image collection for the website. I made it sepia because I felt like hipster-izing it. But don’t worry, no other photos were “harmed” in the making of this site. ;)
Dear Mom, Here’s What I Did Today
So, what do you think? Seriously. What do you think?
This is to be a part of the epic dance video!
WHITE WAVE Young Soon Kim Dance Company SummerStage
At this point all I have to say is that dance photography is not easy. I shall be adding more photos to the Flickr set. Stay tuned. ;)
Fillers are blog posts, too.
Philosophy of Film Production
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film’s artistic and dramatic aspects, while guiding the technical crew and actors.
Directors are responsible for overseeing creative aspects of a film under the overall control of the film producer. They often develop the vision for a film and carry out the vision, deciding how the film should look, in other words they make their vision come to life. They are responsible for turning the script into a sequence of shots. They also direct what tone it should have and what an audience should gain from the cinematic experience. Film directors are responsible for deciding camera angles, lens effects and lighting with the help of the cinematographer and set design with the production designer. They will often take part in hiring the cast and key crew members. They coordinate the actors’ moves, or blocking and also may be involved in the writing, financing and editing of a film.
The director works closely with the cast and crew to shape the film. Some like to conduct rigorous rehearsals in preproduction while others do so before each scene. In either case, this process is essential as it tells the director as well as other key members of the crew (director of photography, stunt coordinator, hair stylist, etc.), how the actors are going to play the scene, which enables them to make any necessary adjustments. Directors often use storyboards to illustrate sequences and concepts and a director’s viewfinder to set up camera angles.
The director also plays a key role in post-production. He or she works with the editor to ensure that the emotions of the scene and the close ups, mid-shots and wide or long shots appropriately reflect which character is driving the narrative. The director also advises on the (colour) grading of the final images, adding warmth or frigidity to the composition of the shots to reflect the emotional subtext of the character or environment. The director also participates and directs the sound mix and musical composition of the film. In the subsequent promotion of the finished film, if a director is well known his name and image is used to promote the film alongside the stars of the film, but having an image is not the primary function of a director, as they are judged by their creative talent and ability to run a production. It is the second most powerful “behind the scenes” profession in the movie industry, after the producer, but the director traditionally has complete control “on the floor”.
The above is a Wikipedia definition of film director, which I felt like looking up just now.
My favorite characteristic, however is the following – a director will:
Control every aspect, and demand that the actors and crew follow instructions precisely.
Sounds boss. Before cheating checking the definition online, the first word that came to mind was interpreter. At the time, I was imagining a director of plays, whose job it is to interpret dramatic texts.
The line above, however, refers to greats such as: Alfred Hitchcock, Chris Nolan, George Lucas, James Cameron and Steven Spielberg. (By the way, the first two are personal favorites.)
What is the meaning of all this?
You may be wondering why I care to define the job title right now. Like, so what or what now? Hint: before the completion of my first film and debut as a [mini] movie director, I’m already contemplating the next project – or vision, rather – that’s hopefully just around the corner.
Love is Madness, Madness is Love
I’m in love with my madness.
Making this video has been madness.
Sorta. It’s been madness because it’s my first one, so I had no idea what I was doing. That and the audacity of thinking you can do anything you set your mind to. It still sometimes stops me in my tracks when I stop to think about it.
It *is* a form of madness.
Why? Since we were like five years old we were taught to color within the lines, to occupy little boxes, to exist within very clear definitions….race, gender, career. It’s only the naïve and the crazies (like myself) who will tell you otherwise.
I am not ashamed.
I’ve decide that I’m going to be a force, which is to say I’m going to do whatever the things that obsess me and keep me up at night are.
I don’t care if I haven’t done them. I don’t care if I don’t know how to do them or how I’ll do them. But I won’t tire. I can’t tire. I will find a way. That’s what this video project has taught me.
There are people who can help me. There are people who can help us – in achieving our wildest dreams. We can’t hold back. We can’t hesitate or give in to that false voice that says we can’t.
I know from experience, and in the past two months I’ve realized: the voice of doubt was not my voice. It was not my true self.
Technicality of Producing a Film
I. Music
I don’t really know how I figured out the music. The constraints were that music could not really be tweaked. We had a piece that wasn’t changeable, so we had to decide where to start but we couldn’t really cut the music and make it into a non-continuous piece.
The video we had was longer than the music, so the question was to find the precise starting point for the music. Which wasn’t easy.
I knew I wanted to start on a piano note, instead of strings. It was hard for me to distinguish where the start of the piano and the strings were (presumably violin). I knew that GarageBand could create some kind of graph that would help me visualize the change between the different types of musical instruments. So I opened up the program for the very first time, learned how to use the damn thing and voilà! found the starting point for our film.
The whole video project was supposed to be a learning experience like this. Which is cool, and it’s probably the best way to retain knowledge. Actually working through a problem and teaching yourself is the reason we had homework as children. Damn homework. All for the sake of retention, I suppose.
Eventually, I got what I needed from GarageBand.
II. Voice Overs
Regarding the selection of voices, there were certainly reasons why I asked the people that I asked. We had a variety of accents, as well as what sounds to me like a: soprano, alto, baritone and tenor voice. And somewhere in the film *my voice* was thrown into the mix, Quentin Tarantino style.
Today was about finding the right voice for the right phrase. I’ll have to discuss the script some other time.
Seeing Inside Us
Now I close with the following Vimeo clip of a Mumford and Sons song which speaks to me – about art making, creativity and process.
So what does it mean to be a director after all? It means to have a very clear vision of what you want a final product to be. It means being very opinionated and unafraid of having awkward conversations… where on one occasion (OK, two for this project) you’re on the verge of tears, unsure of whether or not your team is on the same page as you.
To me, being a “director” has meant being unwavering in my original vision – which was never clearly in words, only merely existed as a figment of my imagination. It’s about trusting and believing in that which is unseen.
Perhaps it is about awakening your soul….
Awake My Soul from Motion 117 Productions on Vimeo.
My favorite part about this piece is the child, you’ll see!
And so my closing remarks to you are…
Wherever you are in life, whatever, binds and keeps you
Whatever holds you from doing whatever is it you were meant to be doing
Made to be doing
Stop!
and do something else
Awaken your soul…
Thanking the Little People
I haven’t been active lately. That’s cause I’ve been hustling. Tonight I was in a recording studio for two hours, followed by a celebratory meal of tapas (an assorted cheese plate, escargot, potatoes, chicken croquettes, lots of bread and Spanish beer – in case you’re wondering).
Legendary Voice Artists
These are my voice artists, more on our epic film soon! Clock-wise from top left:
Brandon Kress, music maker whom I met through the equally awesome Brian Shoicket
Vanusa Forster, lovely lady from Brazil who works at Fluent City (where I took French classes)
Edgar Pantelejevas, future architect of the year, originally from Lithuania and colleague at NY Creative Interns
Deborah Hartranft, actress/poet/Spanish instructor and good friend from high school
Aren’t they beautiful? Wait til you hear their voices, I’m so excited. I can hardly take a moment to update my blog. ;)
