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Hello fellow filmmaker,
I'm a Brazillian citizen who is also Canadian - I lived in Canada for 13 years, and I'm currently studying at the University of Brasilia, Brazil.
I've just finished editing and delivering my first short (My Zombie Girlfriend) for a class called "basic audiovisual workshop". It was a great experience working with a crew. The sony pd-150 that we used is showing its age but can still deliver beautiful images.
http://studentfilmmakers.network/thesecretof/video/minha-namorada-zumbi-my-zombie-girlfriend-obav-1-2010/
What saved this project from being a total disaster was the fact that I bought a couple of excellent books before this semester-long project was completed:
- The Grammar of the Edit by Roy Thompson and Christopher Bowen
- On Directing Film by David Mamet
- Screenwriting for Dummies by Laura Schellhardt
- Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field
The first book helped me to understand how to cut properly - this was my first time editing with a professional non-linear editor (premiere cs4). Editing was a real blast - I enjoyed it tremendously. I find that having crappy footage actually helped the editing in a way, because after all the crap was cut out all I had to do was bandage what was left and it didn't look too bad. Still, having a choice of good shots to cut is a luxury that one day I hope to have.
We shot for 2 and a half days only, and unfortunately we weren't able to re-shoot. Being a student film made by freshmen with no budget and nothing but a camera and a boom mic, I had to just be happy that I actually had something to work on.
But having the experience editing showed me the importance of knowing editing as a director - you simply cannot make a good movie if you don't shoot for editing.
The second book, by Mamet, taught me to let the shot tell the story, among many other things. I highly recommend it to every student filmmaker - the advice he gives made my crappy short much less crappy.
For script writing I had some help with "Screenwriting for Dummies" by Laura Schellhardt, and "Screenplay, The Foundations of Screenwriting" by Syd Field. Both excellent books, and highly highly recommended.
I hope to make some much better shorts in the future - with this short I made (My Zombie Girlfriend) I was able to get a small amount of recognition among my local peers, and hopefully now I can put together a good crew to tell some wonderful stories.
I would greatly appreciate any comment, positive or not, on my short student project. Thank you for reading this.
Regards,
William Sang Min Bae
Brasilia, Brazil
