Mis Classes

This semester, I am taking 5 classes, overloading one more time. It was a little rough doing this last semester, but it turned out fine, so I decided to give it another go before my years in an educational institution come to an end. After a month or so in classes, I've realized how interesting and productive they've been. I'm taking the following:

JO305: Intro to Basic Photography:
I am a self-taught photographer. I got my Digital Rebel XT as a Three King's present, and ever since then, I have pretty much worked alone in learning how to use it and how to take good photographs. I took what I knew from motion picture film and applied it to still photography and the results have been pretty good I believe; especially for having no previous training or help. As time went on, my desire and curiosity grew, so I decided to learn the basics of photography in this class. I only had my digital Canon, so I had to somehow get a hold of a 35mm SLR and a bunch of equipment. I managed to buy a Canon Rebel G on Ebay for $40, which can use the lenses that I have for my Digital Canon, so that was pretty sweet. My dad bought me a 50mm f/1.8 EF lens, a flash, film, paper, etc. Now I'm all set. I had my first assignment, a portrait in shadow and direct sunlight, and I think overall it went well.

The first time I developed film was a mess, but the shots I needed weren't ruined. I, however, thought I could do better, so I re shot and developed that roll. Both times my developing was a mess. I was unable to correctly unspool the film onto the metal spool, so I got some blotches on some shots and some ruined/undeveloped negatives. Overall, what I needed was not ruined. When I was making prints, I ended up wasting around 30-40 sheets of paper, just because I needed to get the exposures JUST right. When Liam told me about getting absolute whites and absolute blacks in my prints, I knew I had to work on them until I got it right. Eventually I did, but after a lot of trial and error. Liam said that it took him a long time to get prints to look good, and he thought mine looked good, so that was encouraging. He didn't have the background in film that I do, so I can see how I picked up on things a little faster. Still, no cakewalk.

FT 5-something: Directing:
This class I love. Half of it is full of COM Directors, and the other half is full of CFA Acting/Theater majors. As directors, we get to write our own scene, and eventually direct it with the actors. We get to cast, rehearse, edit, and work on the project all semester long, and I am really excited about it. I wrote a draft of my scene on Friday, and Liam read it over and gave me some criticisms, so I took his advice and rewrote another scene that he thought was much better. I will write about that later on.

FT 5-something: Kubrick:
Ah the works of Stanley Kubrick is also a great class. It's a little trying just because we spend 4 1/2 hours sitting and either watching a movie or talking about it, but I think Kubrick is one of the greatest American directors, and his movies are truly watchable, as opposed to some other things we watch in other Film Study classes. We've seen Killer's Kiss, The Killing, and Paths of Glory... The best one so far has to be the Killing, if not jut for the last few seconds.

CL305: The Drama of Greek Myth into Film:
This class is really interesting. We are studying the effect of Greek Mythology and Drama on modern day film. So far we've only seen Pasolini's Edipo Re, which was a great mind trip, but we've seen clips from a bunch of other movies, both old and new. The professor is really dynamic and it's not unlikely to have him bellowing Homer's text in relation to the images we had seen seconds prior. Plus he got me reading Plato, Homer, Nietzsche, and Sophocles. And this week we're watching the best film I saw this summer: Chinatown.

FT5-something: Experimental Production for the Small Screen:

Now in this class, we are working for AMP'D Mobile and creating a series of digital shorts for their cell phone download service. The shorts are fictional and dynamic in nature, and have to tell a narrative story. Oh and we're filming the whole thing with their cell phones. Yup, each person in the class got a cell phone to play around with for the whole semester. This class is definitely the oddest one of the bunch, but fascinating at the same time. We're doing something that is as topical as can be, and while different than my original vision of the class, it is still exciting, new and more importantly, different.

So those are my wonderful classes. More to come soon.