January

On the New Year I played Pictionary for the very first time and really enjoyed it. I can’t draw, but I can guess quite well.

The short trip to Chicago was very interesting. I wish I would have spent more time doing local activities, but it was certainly different from any other trip to Chicago I’ve been on. I spent a lot of time in Hyde Park right next to the University of Chicago, which is one of the schools I applied to. I have a friend who lives in the Hyde Park neighborhood so I stayed at her house for one night. I had an amazing cream of potato soup and visited the best used book stores I’ve ever been to.

Break inevitably came to an end and I found myself back at Interlochen finishing up the last two weeks of the semester. They went by easily enough, and although I haven’t seen how I scored on my final exams, I do know that my lowest grade for the semester was an A-.

The most difficult part of those last two weeks was getting my scheduled for second semester the way I wanted it. After running around for an entire day, I was able to make my schedule as good as I could get it. My classes this semester are:

8:00am – 8:50am – Free Hour
9:00am – 9:50am – Acting for the Camera
10:00am – 10:50am – Psychological Literature
11:00am – 11:50am – Statistics AP
12:00pm – 12:50pm – Lunch
1:00pm – 1:50pm – Introduction to Poetry
2:00pm – 2:50pm – Free Hour
3:00pm – 4:50pm – Motion Picture Arts Production Workshop

As soon as the MPA Prod. Workshop starts on the first day of the semester I find out that I have two weeks before I begin shooting my thesis project. My screenplay was not completed and I would not be able to cast actors until the following week. I was given only two 5 hour days of shooting while everyone else receives three 5 hour days.

Because I’m an idiot, I wrote in a lot of locations for my thesis. The last day of the week before I was supposed to begin shooting I was given the all clear to build a hallway in the sound stage. I’ve been using a bunch of scrap material and so far I’ve spent only $65 on the set, although there was one bucket of paint that wasn’t even opened so I should be able to return that. I was supposed to shoot on Friday, February 8th and on Wednesday, February 13th, but the day before I was supposed to shoot the teachers finally realized that the set wasn’t going to be complete and that they hadn’t given me near enough prep time. Finally, in class on the 8th I was able to convince them that I needed a third day of shooting. That being said, I’m feeling much more comfortable with shooting my thesis now.

The hallway being built in the sound stage is amazing. Chris Largent, a technical theater major, has really led the design of hall. She’s done just about all of the painting and made everything as perfect as possible in the amount of time given with the little budget available. I’m in the process of looking for carpet so that we don’t have a super reflective cement floor in the picture. I’ve been given permission by a local carpet retailer to take anything I want from their dumpster, so I plan on doing that as soon as I can get a ride over to it.

January has been an eventful month, but not nearly as eventful as the next few months will be. My thesis is the second one to be filmed out of about 16 thesis projects. I was Director of Photography (camera) for the first thesis filmed. That was interesting experience, but I don’t really want to do any of the technical stuff. I like editing, but that’s the only technical stuff I like in the motion picture area. I prefer directing, assistant directing, and producing.

In our department meeting on Thursday we received the tentative schedule from now until Spring Break in mid-March, and I am certain that I will be exhausted by the time March 16th comes and I can go back home.