william couch

I promise this will be the last post about being a film major for a while. But I have to admit, as the semester comes to a close, things get exciting for filmmaking and scriptwriting students. Films are finishing their post-production and being screened at festivals. You get the opportunity to see the work to which your colleagues have been devoting their precious weekends. All of this became salient during Lightworks Festival a week ago tonight.

Aside from the excitement of having one of the first films you’ve truly put some blood and sweat into screened to an audience of well over a hundred, seeing the work of others, whether they’re in your class, or ones above it (I wish I were as ambitious as those Honors kids. Yes, Brandon and Sean, I’m talking to you. And Mike, I obviously loved the title of your animation short, as evident by this post’s title.), is truly rewarding. I definitely have a newfound appreciation for being a film major.

That said, and as promised per the last post, the final film Geoff, Zach, Mike and I made, The Gardener, is complete and posted above. Screened at Lightworks last friday, the film received an overwhelming audience response. Almost everyone who helped with the film was in attendance, and that silent moment between the final shot of the film and the credits has got to be one of the most rewarding moments I’ve ever experienced. I don’t mean for this to become self-congratulatory; I’m solely trying to express the rewarding nature of finishing a piece of work that has been a long time in the making, and how great it is to hear that people enojoyed your production group’s goal. Especially when those people are your incredibly smart and well-versed theory/history professor (Rob King) or the revered Ann Arbor Film Festival Director and they express such appreciation through donning the awards of Best Director and Best Cinematography to your film.

A year ago this spring, I somewhat nervously made the decision to become a film major, and right now I couldn’t be more pleased with having done so.

[You can view a complete list of winners from the Winter '06 Lightworks festival here. Also, many of the films are available for download to your computer or iPod via the FVSA Video Podcast.]

Being a film major definitely has its perks - one of them being a (relatively) tangible final product. My 300 group consisting of Geoff George, Zach Hoskins, Mike Zatorski and myself have been working extremely diligently this semester, often devoting entire weekends, to create some pretty spiffy projects. Our first one, Spin the Bottle, has been complete for a few weeks now. The emphasis for this assignment was lighting and we did ourselves in, with regards to complexity, as we had a 360 degree area to light and shoot. Overall, the film turned out pretty welll, and we got an A on it, (with an A+ on aesthetics) so that was pretty sweet. You can watch it via YouTube now.

Also, our second film, Flow is complete, but I do not have a digital copy of it yet that includes the titles, but that’ll be up when I get it. And our third film, The Gardener is now in post-production and let me tell you, it’s going to be something to behold (Production Stills). It’ll be making its official premiere at the Lightworks Festival on April 21st at the Nat. Sci. Auditorium. And while you’re visiting the Lightworks link, subscribe to the video podcast that showcases student films from the department.

After this semester, I’ll pretty much be done working with film. I’ll be taking a screenwriting class in the fall (and I’m tremendously excited about that), and then my Production requirement will have been fulfilled. When working on film, you put your blood and sweat into the projects, solely due to the immense amount of preparation that goes into Pre-Production and Production in order to get a quality result. Unlike video, once that film is processed, there’s little you can do in Post-Production to change your project but splice and spool. But oh, how you can completely change a film in that editing process…case in point, The Gardener. That’s right, you’d better be excited and I’d better be seeing you on April 21.

Today, The Michigan Daily featured a great article in The Statement about Ted Kaczynski and his time here at the University of Michigan. What’s more important about this article, however, was that great journalism was at work. When Karl Stampfl, one of the Daily’s Managing News Editors, set out to write this article, he sent a letter directly to Ted Kacyznski in the penitentiary Kaczynski’s being held at in Colorado, to inquire directly from the source. Kaczynski replied with a letter and, impressively, also transcribed a copy of his autobiography written by him in 1979, not even omitting original mispellings or grammatical errors. From this, Karl reconstructed a semblance of the infamous Unabomber’s time at the University.

It’s impressive when a college newspaper sets its ambitions high, and when it does, an article such as this happens. I am partially biased though, as I work for the Daily, had the opportunity to design the centerspread for the story, and even got to see his handwritten response hands-on (at which point I scanned it and had them upload it with the article online), but regardless, that a student newspaper inquired from the source and was able to ellicit such a response from the Unabomber is something of which any newspaper could and should be proud.