Pre-Productionnnnn

Hey everyone,

Just so ya'll know, my last post was a pathetic attempt at an April Fool's Joke... I am tattoo free (for now).

So some of you may be wondering, "Adam... Why haven't you been enlightening us with your adventures and travels? Why have you only blogged once in the last month?"

Well... Because I have been extremely stressed out. Here's an update:

Our pre-production is this week and part of last week. Although my group was the last group to finalize our idea for our movie, we will be the first group to shoot. Why? Because, according to what our Production Manager told us, "You all seem the most prepared."

Well, that's what being a perfectionist gets you... It may result in people thinking that you are actually prepared (when you're really not).

Anyway, this week we have run into some problems:

1) Our producer is OUT OF THE COUNTRY. Yes, she is in Washington D.C.
2) We have a mandatory field trip from Friday to Sunday. Yes, we have a MANDATORY field trip just a few days before our actual shoot.
3) We also have a camera seminar on Monday and Tuesday. Yes, we only get to look at the camera we're using THE DAY BEFORE OUR ACTUAL SHOOT. And while we do need to look at the camera, they could not have scheduled this at a more inconvenient time.

With everything that is going on, this means that today is the only day that we actually get to work with our producer to cover up some last minute details. Today's agenda:

Go to Barandov studios at noon. We will spend 3-4 hours looking around one of the biggest film studios in Europe for props, costumes, and set decor. This is probably one of the most important aspects of all of our pre-production... we are shooting in a pretty boring apartment and really need to make it look like an old 50 year old woman lives in it.

Meet with our sound prof a little after 4. Then at 5 we are meeting with our editing prof.

After prop search and meetings, we will be working pretty late tonight to finalize EVERYTHING before we have to leave for our trip tomorrow morning.

Wish me luck. And here are some pictures of our set:

Update

Hey everybody,

Quick update. Today I went hiking up to an old castle outside of Prague and it was awesome to be outside in the wilderness. I will have pictures soon.

Also, the other day my group (Andy, Jenna and I) decided to get tattoos. I have been thinking about doing this for a while now, so I was easily persuaded to get matching tattoos with them. We decided to get tattoos of 35mm cameras. Here's a quick picture of it, I will tell you about it later:

Productive Day

My only goal of today was to be productive.

1) I woke up at 8am (naturally... looks like I was off to a good start). I woke up and made myself some eggs, bread with strawberry jam, strawberry yogurt, and a banana (see grandma. I am eating well).

2) While eating breakfast, I watched last night's episode of the Daily Show. Frustration of the day: Fox News spent a lot of time and frustration on the supposed 7.5 million dollars it took to clean up after protesters inside the Madison, WI capital... On Monday, they (very briefly) stated that they were wrong and that the actual cost will be closer to $325,000... Now that's a major fuck-up (and I don't usually swear).

3) I went for a 2.5 mile run with J-No (Jenna). It felt good, although Prague isn't a very run-friendly city.

4) I studied for today's Czech test for about an hour.

5) A bunch of us had lunch with two of the heads of the program for our monthly "Culture Discussions." The topic of this discussion was "Czech Holidays, Dining, and Differences." They allowed us each to spend 200 Crown (about 10 bucks) on lunch. And what does 10 bucks get you for lunch in the Czech Republic? A big Chicken-Curry Pizza, an appetizer of broccoli covered in 4 different types of cheese, and a very tall beer.

6)Czech Class/Test... It didn't go as well as I hoped, but I'm satisfied with my learning of the language.

7) Came back to my apartment. Made dinner (a salad with red cabbage, red peppers, other healthy veggies). Watched the extended interview with Jon Stewart and Republican Senator Rand Paul. Then I wrote an article about my disappoint with Augsburg Student Government, which I will e-mail to the Augsburg Newspaper tonight (and then get paid 20 bucks for writing it.... awesome).

8) I have class in 20 minutes: Visual Theory I. This class is awesome. Although my professor, Beth Lazroe, one of the most intimidating (at least, initially intimidating) women I have met, but she is an amazing professor.

9) Off to the pub. Andy, Jenna, and I have to discuss our movie. Scripts are due next Friday, so we have a lot of work to do.

10) Skype with my favorite Abbey Ehling tonight at 9:30.

11) Read, and then bedtime.

More Berlin Pics

Yo folks. Michal and I are making Goulash for dinner (a soup with sausage, onion, potato, garlic, special goulash spices...), and while it simmers, I decided to post some more Berlin photos:


Berlin is famous for its Curry-Wurst. It combines really good German sausage with my absolute favorite spice (curry) into one of the best street foods I have EVER had. The curry-wurst comes with curry/spice/salsa sauce stuff on top of it, then they put fries on top of that, and then they put ketchup or mayo on top of that. And then you mix it all together and eat it with a baby fork. It was amazing.



I was feeling brave on this night and ordered an extremely authentic German meal: a "pork knuckle." The pork knuckle is one of the pigs joints in its legs. They served it with sauerkraut, cheesey potatoes, and some other kind of unidentifiable green mixture that had the texture of refried beans... Anyway, you pull back the very thick layers of fat from the top of the meat (some people eat the fat and the skin, but I tried and couldn't handle it). Underneath this layer is some of the best pork meat that you will ever eat. It was great.





Reichstag is the building where the German Parliament resides (like our capital building in Washington D.C.). It is a very cool combination of the old (the traditional architecture of the old building) and the new (the glass dome built on top of it). Usually, you can go up to the top part of the dome and see a 360 degree view of Berlin, but the building was closed at this time to the public.



Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. This was an amazing part of the trip. These stone structures were built to remind people of the horrors that occurred during the Holocaust so that they may never happen again. It is estimated that more than 6 MILLION jews were killed during the Holocaust.



We spent hours inside the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (the museum portion is underneath the stone monuments). One of the most haunting things I have ever seen were the many letters that were posted under glass plates in the floor of the museum. This letter is from a boy the about the age of my little brother (I think he was somewhere between 8 and 12 years old when he wrote this letter home to his father while he was stuck in a concentration camp... He died days later). It says, "Dear Father! I am saying goodbye to you before I die. We would so love to live, but they won't let us and we will die. I am so scared of this death, because the small children are thrown alive into the pit. Goodbye forever. I kiss you tenderly."



This is a portion that is left from the Berlin Wall. I also went to the East Gallery, which is one of the longest stretches of the Berlin Wall remaining, and it remains so that graffiti artists may paint on it.



Museum Island



Hotel where Michael Jackson hung his baby out the window:


While in Berlin, I discovered perhaps one of the most simple, pure, amazing pleasures in life... Drinking in public. In Berlin, every single metro stop has a shop where you can buy food (Chinese stands, sausage stands, and many other things), magazines (including Playboy, which was weird), and also beer. Lots of beer. The night life in Berlin doesn't start until midnight, so the metro systems operate 24 hours a day during the weekend and EVERYBODY is walking around with a beer in their hand... Even on metro. It was one of the craziest feelings in the world to see people drinking and singing songs on public transit.



And here is the hostel room that we stayed at. It was very nice and we met a few cool people. The main room had beds for 30 people to stay in, but all of us FAMU kids got put together into the 20 person room.

Berlin Film Fest

So two weeks ago, a bunch of us took a 4-hour train ride to Berlin, Germany.

It was great. Our hostel was amazing and we got to spend a few days exploring Germany's capital. Pictures are below.

It cost about 80 dollars to take a round-trip train to/from Berlin. The train trip lasted about 4 hours and was really nice. I have a very hard time falling asleep on trains/buses/planes, but my roommate John and I found an empty cabin and laid across all of the seats on the way there.


Picture of The Brandenburg Gate, one of Berlin's most famous landmarks. It used to be the main entrance into Berlin.


This is from inside the movie theater (I have never been in a theater so big). We saw "Coriolanus" a modern Shakespeare adaptation and the directorial debut of Ralph Fiennes. It was a good (not great) film.


This is us posing on the red carpet.


The theater:


Buying tickets:

I Can't Write Happy Endings

Hello all.

Today was a rough day.

1) I spent 20 minutes in the supermarket today looking for earplugs. While I was successful in finding the cheapest shaving cream and blades that I could (the electric shaver I brought with doesn't hold a charge from these European outlets), I was unable to find the ear plugs. After some mistakes in translation, I had people bring me cotton balls and q-tips... And then I gave up.

2) Why the ear plugs? Well, I am a light sleeper and my dad forgot to accomplish the single task I gave him (bringing me ear plugs from his work that I could bring to Europe). At first I thought I would be fine, but last night was the kicker: I volunteered to sleep in the living room last night on the futon (irony: the futon I slept on is THE EXACT SAME FUTON that I avoided sleeping on in my apartment in Minneapolis... And it is uncomfortable) because Michal was having a certain lady friend over... Which meant him and her staying up all night and talking/listening to music... I got 5 hours of sleep.

3) I got 5 hours of sleep.

4) I am getting frustrated with my script. Last night, Andy, Jenna, and I spent 2 hours in a pub talking about our movie. I am the screenwriter, and it's A LOT of pressure. The script has come a long way over the last few days, but it still has some problems and we are desperately trying to figure it out.

I also realized that I have a hard time writing happy endings for my screenplay... For some reason, every idea I come up with in my screenplay ends up with the main character dying. This was a depressing realization.

5) I did not get accepted as a Noble Peace Scholar... Which ruined my day. It has been a long time since I have wanted something so badly--I even gave up my McNair scholarship so that I would have the chance to study in Norway. Also, I figured out that the other applicants got to go in for interviews, while I was not even contacted for a phone call or skype conference (there is of course the likelyhood that I was not a strong enough candidate to even be considered for an interview, which would make me even more sad).

6) I have class in 12 minutes. See you later :)

Class

Howdy folks.

A lot has gone on in the last week.

This week I started my classes:

MONDAY
10:40-11:25 SCREENWRITING - My professor Pepi is one of the kindest old men I have met. He (like nearly every other prof here at FAMU), is pounding Aristotle's "Poetics" into our head. After taking this class for two days, I feel like I am attending FAMU at the perfect moment in my life and that becoming an English major was one of the best decisions I have ever made. It has really helped my story telling abilities and has allowed me to develop useful critiques in the classroom.

12:20-1:55 CAMERA AND FILM - I actually haven't had this class yet... Pepi (the screenwriting prof) will teach us Screenwriting for 3 hours and 55 minutes instead for the first couple weeks.

3:40-6 GUEST FILMMAKER SERIOUS (OPTIONAL) - This is one of the many screenings that I will force myself to attend all semester. FAMU will bring in a different director every week to show a film, and then the director will talk about it and answer questions.

6:10-7:45 CINEMATOGRAPHY - The prof for this class is intimidating. He asks the most complex questions regarding light/color/cinematography and then gets slightly upset that nobody in the class knows the answer. After the first class, I felt somewhat angry that Augsburg did not prepare me for this class, so I will just have a lot more work to do in order to catch up.

TUESDAY
2:50-4:25 CZECH LANGUAGE - It's hard, but I'm learning.

4:30-6 CONSULTATION - Pepi (screenwriting prof) wants us to come in and talk to him at least every other week about our scripts and shooting specifics.

7:50-9:25 VISUAL THEORY 1 - The prof for this class is one of the most intimidating women I have ever met. Her #1 rule: "If your cell phone goes off in my class, I will kick you out." In this class, we will study the aesthetics of art, almost entirely regarding still photography. I have a feeling that this class will teach me A LOT about the framing/composition of my motion pictures and still photography.

WEDNESDAY
9:50-11:25 ACTING - I have already taken an acting class at Augsburg (and both classes are very heavy on the Stanislavski method), but this class is much more about acting in relation to the camera. Should be very helpful.

11:30-1:05 EDITING - A theory course (which is unfortunate, I need to catch up to many of the other students regarding my Final Cut skills... but then again, I can do that on my own time) where we will discuss basic montage theories.

2:50-5:15 DIRECTING - For the first few weeks, our directing class will be primarily about story telling. I pitched my script in this class on Wednesday and the prof absolutely tore it apart. I went from feeling very good about it, to wanting to completely change my idea... Fortunately, the script has changed a lot over the last couple days (for the better... I think), and I am willing to try another pitch this week. Hopefully he will have some positive comments to say...

6:10-7:45 SCRIPT ANALYSIS - The dean of FAMU teaches this course. On the very first day, he quoted James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" and I knew that I would like this course. We will watch a different film every other week and then discuss it the next week. Once again, I think that it will be helpful for me and my storytelling.

7:50-9:25 VISUAL THEORY 2 - Same prof, but more advanced.

THURSDAY
2-3:35 SOUND - Should be awesome. I think that sound is EXTREMELY important in movies and I think that this class will be very beneficial.

3:40-5:15 SCREENWRITING - Same prof, same stuff.

7-8:35 SCRIPT ANALYSIS 2 - Same prof, but more advanced. Different movies (focusing primarily on New Hollywood: Harold and Maude, Midnight Cowboy, Annie Hall). The only thing that I am slightly disappointed about is the fact that I have seen about 7 of the 10 movies that we are watching for my script analysis class. It will be interesting to learn about them though.

And then on Friday = NO CLASS!!!

Overall, I have realized that this semester will be INTENSE. Unless I calculated incorrectly, I have 21 hours and 20 minutes of class per week (at Augsburg, I would only have 12 hours of class per week)... That's a lot of class. And then, throw in my consultation sessions and a couple film screenings every week... On top of the basic class stuff, I also have to come up with a script and create a final 7-10 minute 16mm color film at the end of the semester... It's a lot of pressure. Wish me luck.