I’ll begin with where I left off in my last post. I went to St. John’s College in Santa Fe and discovered that they’re most likely closing down their darkroom for next year. So I’m going to go to UNL and enjoy interning with NET and doing whatever else comes my way. That’s really it for college.

The last week of school is known as Festival. All the art areas at Interlochen have special presentations/performances for family, friends, and anyone else to attend. The Motion Picture Arts Thesis Screening was especially gruesome for me as I’d already seen all the thesis projects and the total runtime is about two hours. It wouldn’t have been so bad had there only been one screening, but instead there was one every day and my attendance was required for all of them. (At least I didn’t have to organize the event.)

On our last night at Interlochen there was an end of the year dance that involved chips, salsa, punch, and glow sticks. The dance was outside in the Bowl, and if I remember correctly, the last song played was “Don’t Worry, Be Happy!” Of course, everybody was late for the 1am sign-in that night as we were all leaving the next day and so there would be no punishment. I share a last late-night orange with friends before heading off to bed as I had to graduate in the morning.

Graduation is great. The music is great. Every time a four-year student (a student who went to Interlochen all four years of high school) is called to receive his/her diploma, the other four-years stand up and spin. It’s over, and we’re dismissed from the stage. The beginning Commencement is over. (I imagine it was like most other graduation ceremonies, except for that this one had lake and forest in the background.)

The mass of seniors and post-grads are all taking pictures and saying final good-byes in the mall area. Parents are trying to find their recently graduated seniors, but having no luck. I have a final meal in the cafeteria with my family and then head off to begin packing. That’s right, I had to begin packing.

The process of packing is rather simple and involves shoving everything possible into suitcases, large trash bags, boxes, and the trunk of the car. I’ll move on.

After going to a graduation party in town and then showing my family some of downtown Traverse City, I get dropped off at my friend Jane’s house. Her mother drives me to Sam’s house where we eat dinner and I meet an interesting fellow names Steve, who happens to be a photographer. I have a long discussion with him before heading back over to Jane’s house where some Interlochen friends will be spending the night before we all leave. Jane lives in the country and so we stayed in a little cabin with no electricity some distance from her house. We light candles and burned wood in the little stove to keep us warm during the night. It was a clear night and perfect for star gazing. I did see one shooting star.

The next morning my family came to pick me up and we left to go canoeing in the Platte River, which feeds into Lake Michigan. After that, we went straight back home to find a tree on our house from the recent storms that have been going through the midwest.

And in case you were wondering, I certainly do miss Interlochen.

Over spring break I purchased a used Canon A-1 film camera. In order to not let my  money go to waste, I had to take a lot of pictures. I got permission to develop my film with the visual art department’s equipment, and all was/is good. 

The biggest event of April was MORP, which is prom spelled backwards. Because I go to art school, there is a certain desire to do things differently. (The Arts and Humanities Focus Program of LPS also has a MORP.) I went with my friend Jane, who is a technical theatre major. She focuses on costume design, and so she made a dress to match my shirt. We all spent the night at another friend’s house who lives right next to Jeff Kimpton (president of Interlochen Center for the Arts) the night before MORP to get ready there. The next morning we grabbed some appetizers at the reception and got on the buses taking us to the Grand Traverse Resort were MORP was being held. 

The theme for MORP this year was “Lights Out!” So there were glow sticks everywhere. The table center pieces were foam blocks with protruding glow sticks on all sides. After the fairly decent meal and very rich chocolate cake, everybody got up to dance with their glow things while I went around taking pictures. I played around with Jane’s camera doing some rear-sync flash photography with slow shutter speeds. By the end of the night I took around 800 pictures. 

After the dance, we all got on the buses once again to go bowling. I played one really bad game and took pictures the rest of the time there. Eventually, I left the group I came with and socialized with some other friends. We were the last group to leave the bowling alley on a bus that left at 4 a.m., which meant that we got back on campus at 4:30 a.m. We weren’t exactly happy to have to wait so long to get back, but we had a very good time.

The next day was MORP brunch. There was a station for omelettes, cotton candy, pizza, smoothies, and “exotic” fruit (watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe, berries, and pineapple — not anything very exotic). Of course, everyone was there stuffing their faces with as much food as possible. Even some of the teachers were there, although some of them were the ones making the omelettes. 

And that was Interlochen’s MORP 2008. As for what’s happened the other part of April. I can’t really remember, except for that I received word that I was accepted to St. John’s College in Santa Fe with a nice financial aid offer. So on May 12th and 13th I am making the trip to go visit the college and see how I like it.

I’ve been very busy [procrastinating] so I haven’t had time to update my blog. Now that I’m on Spring Break and I have nothing to do, I can finally write about February at Interlochen. But since it’s the middle of March, I don’t really remember what happened in February. Never fear, though, I will try to remember.

My friend Aaron, also a motion picture major, is a very hard worker and has many resources. He learns quickly and has a good eye for composition. A family friend of his named Carl, who he also refers to as his sort of mentor, has taught him all about photography. Carl has taken pictures for Time Magazine (I’m pretty sure it was Time) since he was 14 years of age. Anyway, Aaron has worked since this summer to be able to create his thesis on celluloid film, and he was able to do so. He received the Panavision New Filmmaker Program award, which let him use a Panavision 16mm film camera to film his thesis. He also got some grant money from various community endowments, which allowed him to buy all the film, have it processed, and scanned. What does this mean for me? Well, I was one of 5 students that was trained and allowed to touch the camera. So, basically, I’m at a huge advantage as a high schooler because I’ve actually worked with celluloid film.

By the way, we shot Aaron’s thesis over Mid-Winter break. Because I was the assistant director, the two days of shooting we had were about 14 hour days for me as I had to get on location early. Our last day of shooting was on a Monday, which meant that we had school the next day. (The school week is Tuesday through Saturday.) Thankfully, all of the motion picture teachers were just as exhausted, so the 2-hour MPA Production Workshop was canceled.

The filming of my thesis project has been completed. I’m okay with the footage. Now I need to edit it. I’m not particularly thrilled with how it’s turning out, but I’m okay with the fact that it just won’t be as good as I was hoping it’d be. I learned what I needed to learn, and that is if you want to create a narrative film you need to have something you want to say. You can’t base your story off of an image, it needs to have a message. When I came up with my thesis, I just had an image and I worked my story around the image. Guess what. It didn’t turn out so well. Not that it’s bad, it’s just not great. That’s okay, though. It’s high school and I came here to learn something new, and that I did.

After Spring Break, we have to begin and complete filming several thesis projects all by the end of April. That means we’ll be filming two at the same time so we’ll have to split up crews and equipment. Thank God I’m done filming!

Lately, things have been fairly turbulent at Interlochen. There have been a lot of students to get in trouble for various reasons including alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, and Robitussin. I won’t list the names, but I will assign numbers and list the numbers so that one may visualize what I mean by “a lot of students.”

Students Expelled/Suspended/on [Mandated] Emotional Leave

I forgot to mention that this has all happened since the last week of February.

Also, the Martha Graham Dance Company came to Interlochen and presented with some dance students here. The Martha Graham dancers put on Appalachian Spring and the students did Diversion of Angels.

As far as what happens after high school, I’m still waiting to hear back from colleges. I did receive the International Scholar award from UNL, which I should have never received. I technically shouldn’t have it because I’m a resident of Nebraska. Because I’m graduating in Michigan, though, UNL thinks that I’m out-of-state. All the scholarship does is bring my current out-of-state tuition price tag down to in-state tuition minus a few hundred dollars. I’m currently trying to see if they will review my file again for in-state scholarships, but then I’m at risk of losing the International Scholar award. Great.

For this summer, I’ve applied for the motion picture internship at Interlochen Arts Academy. If I get the position, I’d have to live in Michigan for about a month and a half over the summer, and I’d pretty much be assisting Michael Mittelstaedt (director of motion picture arts at Interlochen) with anything he needs.

That’s all I have for now. I should go out and enjoy Nebraska’s glorious weather.

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.

The three weeks we are back at Interlochen between Thanksgiving break and winter break are awful. Thankfully, I was able to be excused from a history project because I had so much motion picture work to do. I had to go on multiple shoots for pieces we are working on in the Introduction to Motion Picture Arts Production class. I had quite a bit of Film History work, and I had to begin writing my thesis project for the year.

I’m having a difficult time remembering all that happened this month, so I’ll list off what I do remember.

• a friend was expelled due to drug use
• the techno dance
• utterly disappointing Holiday Dinner
• watching Star Wars, episode IV – original theatrical release on the big screen for Film History
• wonderful farces at the Harvey Theater
• backstage at the Nutcracker
• Motion Picture Arts department holiday party – Scene It on the big screen
• my flight home being canceled

The Holiday Dinner is supposed to be a formal affair with better food than usual. I had the Mahi Mahi, but it was dry. The best part of the meal were the five bottles of Welch’s sparkling grape juice.

Because my flight was canceled, I missed my check up with my orthodontist to see how my teeth are getting along without braces. I was one of the last students to leave Interlochen. My flight left at 3pm on Monday, but I had to leave Interlochen at 1pm. I got to hang around in airports all day Monday as I had a very long layover in O’Hare.

It’s good to be back at home where I don’t have as many obligations, but I want to go back. Soon enough a friend will be coming from school to visit, then we’ll both head up early to Chicago and spend a few days there before classes start again.

I was planning on updating my blog once a month, but that didn’t happen.

October was for Halloween, which was not what I’m used to. There was just something weird about trick or treating at people’s houses that you’ve seen, yet never talked to. (We trick or treat at faculty and staff houses.) You feel kind of bad taking their candy. Then there was the Halloween dance, which was just O.K. My night was really made when we went to a friend’s house and spent the night there. We didn’t go to sleep until almost 4 a.m. Oh, and by the way, none of this actually happened on Halloween. We celebrated Halloween the Sunday before.

Since then, we held an audition workshop for practicing auditions. A piece that I wrote was used for the workshop, and now the same piece was picked to be filmed by my production class. The casting for the scene went very well. I am quite happy with the actors. I just wish that I was directing the scene, but as I wrote it, that isn’t possible.

Instead, I have to direct, along with three other people, a scene from When Harry Met Sally for my Directing for the Camera class. I also have to act in a scene from Mystic River, and light a scene from Stranger Than Fiction. I’m only kind of looking forward to this.

Right now I’m on Thanksgiving break. While waiting for my connection to Lincoln from Minneapolis, I met up with my friend Jessica, and we went to the Mall of America for a little bit. We stopped and got something to eat at Caribou Coffee. They have these huge donuts appropriately called Paul Bunyan donuts. I got a (gigantic) Bavarian creme-filled long john, as always. I arrived in Lincoln on Sunday at around noon. I feel like I’ve been asleep the entire time I was at Interlochen. My life since September has been a dream, and I just woke up at home. It feels so weird.

I’m trying to see as many people as I can this week, and still get some work done for school. We’ll see how that goes. If anything, I won’t get any work done, and then I’ll be working all next week. I’m used to that, though, so that may be how it happens.

I finally have the time to update this site. Interlochen Arts Academy is very intense. By the beginning of the second week of school we had already finished David Mamet’s book On Directing Film and read the entire script to Thelma and Louise, only to begin reading the script for The Incredibles, which we finished Friday. Now I have to read the script for The Graduate and work on three writing assignments, while studying for the SAT Subject Test for U.S. History in my spare time.

It’s nice, though, because almost everyone is studying right after dinner. Books are put away around 8 or 9pm and then there’s a lot of socializing until sign-in at 10pm on school days. After sign-in, people hang out with their friends that live in the same dorm until 11pm, which is when we have to be in our rooms.

So, although we do have classes from 8am to 5pm and then we study until about 9pm, it’s a very social atmosphere. Plus, the Thursday schedule is different in that we don’t always have academic classes that day. For instance, we’ll just have to go watch a video for a history class or meet briefly with the math class. After lunch, we meet with our arts department for however long is necessary and then the class day is over. Thursdays provide a nice break in the middle of the week that let us get some extra work done. (Like focus days at the Zoo School.)

A few days ago, Andrew David (director of The Fugitive and Holes) came with Joel McNeely (composer for Holes and Pooh’s Heffalump Movie) to talk to us. They screened Holes for anybody that was interested and I got to sit right next to Andy Davis and Joel. The next day, they came to one of my motion picture classes and screened Andy Davis’s first feature film.

On Saturday, we got to hear Victoria Clark speak. It was an all-school event, in which President Kimpton of Interlochen Center for the Arts and David Montee (the director of the theatre department here) set up an Inside the Actor’s Studio type event. I don’t know if I really got anything out of hearing her speak, but it was very entertaining. The event was recorded and should be available as podcast sometime soon on the Interlochen website.

Also on Saturday night was what is called Coffee House, which is a talent show that the students put on. It was really a lot of fun. They were asking for confessions and secrets to be turned in so that they could be shared anonymously with the everyone there. The confessions were hilarious. There were some of people walking in on their friends or parents having sex to how they had a crush on teachers/counselors here at the school.

Yesterday was the senior trip to Mackinac Island. There is only one car on the island, and it is the fire engine. It’s a huge tourist location with bike rental everywhere. I wanted to rent a bicycle and bike around the 8-mile island, but instead I rode a horse through the forest. My horse was lazy and would get going very slowly, so the guide gave me a stick to hit my horse with and put me in the lead. It was a great trip, except for waiting to get on the ferry to leave the island. What happened was that I ate a lot of ice cream and then played freeze tag, so I felt incredibly sick. I got better, though, and I did not throw up at all.

I finally received my packet of information several days ago, but it was not at all very informative. (Thanks a lot, Interlochen.) My favorite line of text in the entire packet was the one that read, “You may be thinking that it’s a bit early to start thinking of school…” Wow, that just pissed me off. I’d been waiting for this packet since July and I didn’t get it until mid-August. It did include a mouse pad, though, so I guess that’s OK.

I have just about everything I need for school. I went to Omaha today and got some jeans that I couldn’t find anywhere else. I called all of the Gap stores in Lincoln and Omaha and there was only one that carried the jean I wanted in my size. I’m a little worried about getting snow boots. I just want to have them before it snows more than inch, but I can’t find any anywhere. Other than that, I’m ready to go.

Oh wait, my computer isn’t working! When do I leave again? That’s right, Wednesday at 6 a.m. I should probably rush the guy at Computer Hardware to get it fixed NOW. Like it says in the ’81-’82 Interlochen yearbook, “Like, what a drag. I mean, spare me.”

I have gotten my uniform, although I believe I’ll need one more shirt. I need to get a few supplies for living and school. More importantly, I need to get a really warm winter coat and snow boots. I hope those supplies are available in stores soon, if not I’ll just get them at the mall in Traverse City, but I’d rather not.

It’s been decided, I leave September 5th to be there on the 6th. My father and I will leave from Omaha to Detroit and then drive a rental to Interlochen. All we need to do is buy the tickets, which for some unknown reason we have not done.

In order to get all of my required classes for college admissions and all of my required classes for the MPA major, I need to take 8 hours of classes per semester. While I was talking to a counselor at Interlochen, he told me that because I’m going through an arts education most colleges won’t have the same academic requirements. What if I want to major in International Relations, though? I believe those academic requirements would come in to play then, but I really don’t know. I may end up dropping one of the academic courses, but that’s still just a thought.