Two times preproduction

I can't believe we're T minus nine days from February already.

This year has already become about focusing and finding out what I need to succeed, creating a perpetual motion machine out of passion and drive - accepting certain truths, and adapting to them. Being clear-headed, ultimately. Unraveling the rhetorical surrounding self-improvement.

It's funny how I'm rediscovering the excitement of finding like-souls. When I come home from the odd set or an event, it's like I could be coming home from elementary school and wanting to tell my mom about the new friend I made. But then I get to thinking how weird it is to not be telling my mom about that kind of stuff is. Growing up is weird. This weirdness is all combined with this influx of 'coming of age' literature and film I've been consuming. I've been reading through John Green's works, watching films like 'The Perks of a Wallflower', even my grad script sort of takes me back to when I was a kid. It's like I'm rediscovering my youth. Weird stuff. 

Burgeoning stress about my grad film has already culminated in nice nightmares about me not delegating, no one on set getting fed, being hours behind schedule, and somehow neglecting to do a shot list. Nothing like a production night terror to shake your senses at 3am on a Saturday. Mark Ruffalo was there saying, 'you know you're two hours behind schedule, right?'

I've made a lot of larger decisions about my grad film that are sourcing a large amount of anxiety/combo/excitement. I hope that I can utilize this semester to produce a near-to shooting script so that I can start wrapping my head around the logistics of a shoot that requires travel and casting in another province. I think I just need to track down some willing individual who can produce for me. But producing is a large, and often unwelcome job offering. I'm confident (sort of) that I can assemble enough of a crew who can commit to the travel and shoot time. Because I think it's going to be a pretty excellent adventure - and what's an adventure without a band of misfits to accompany you?

Finally nailing down a schedule this semester I can fill with reading and taking photos. My schedule is unpleasantly wide open. Now that other student shorts have started, some time has been filled with set work, which I am profoundly grateful for.

I am hoping this semester I can find more time to study directing and cinematography on paper. I am determined that the more subject matter I consume about film, the more I will be able to recall and discuss on a regular basis. For my spring semester project, I've tailored a script to challenge me in alternative ways - more updates on that as they come along. A mocumentary, one performer, imaginary friend spectacular! Though I'm finding it rather unpleasant to be writing and pre-producing two films at once. It's borderline horrific.

I eagerly await spring. When I can hack away at the garden for some stress relief and sun rays.

Hope everyone's January comes to a pleasant end.

Things to check the hell out:

The Birds of Paradise Project

Beasts of the Southern Wild, you should probably just watch it.

Raincity Chronicles - in leiu of January's show being sold out like... forever ago, I've bought tickets for their show in March. Would anyone like to join?

WIFTV Festival!

PuSH Festival

Twenty thirteen.

Happy New Years everyone! I hope the holidays have spoiled you all rotten - and were laden with family, friends and good food. And I hope, for everyone who made them, the new years resolutions are holding up!

The culmination of 2012 took place in Vancouver - my first new years in the city. As 2012 came to and end and 2013 began, the past year begged for some reflections. No large realizations, more... reaffirmations, I think - finding pathways to make myself a stronger, kinder individual - to succeed in what I put my mind to. Pretty standard Auld-Lang-Syne-type stuff.

Resolutions are a rather functional ideology - because they give us this conscious chance to see what we are, what we were and what we want to be. It doesn't necessarily change anything - it's just sort of an internal systems purge, dusting off foggy dreams and memories, maybe wiggling some things around. Sets everything straight again, if only for a little while.

Christmas was good - a long holiday this year, filled with dogs and gingerbread houses and mulled wine. I also got to work with the crew at Café Books over the holidays - which is always superbly prime. Snowshoeing with my folks was tons of fun - though we should have been out doing that more. I got to (finally) read my first John Green book, Looking for Alaska - (which was lovely, I wish I had read it a few years ago), re-read Tolkien's The Hobbit (which made me further rage about the film - which I have so many feels about I don't even know), and got into a volume of Greg Bear's short fiction (I also read a bunch of Kafka, but I don't want to talk about it).

My to-read list this year is monstrous, as is my to-see list. But I am a fan of lists, so this is probably okay. By September of this year, I am going to have two whole other short films shot, one completed, the other going into post. Really got to do that one chin up. Just the one (it's a process). Cooking more and baking more, that's going to be a combo of fun and tough I look forward to. And! Here's a large one - I've got to not wait around for things - there's my big new year's whatever. I can't wait around for occasions, people, miracles, opportunities. Waiting around is for chumps. Gotta go and get it - gotta go get that one chin up. Plus some other stuff.

Most of my education is over, and when it is, I'll be glad to be out. I've got barely a year and a half to make sure I know how to swim. Then it's out to sea with the lot of us.

The sea's a scary place, to be sure. But the second we stop fearing is the second we stop learning, creating and moving forward - and, to layer on the cheese, we stop living.

Life's all about the cheese.

All you poor souls going back to school this week (as one of you, I sympathize) - Have a good semester!

And thus ends my blog post filled with secrets in parenthesis.

Things to keep up with/check out/feast your eyes upon:

Keep up with Rheanna Toy's short film NINA, going into production sooon!

The Rain City Chronicles has a show coming up this month, and I really can't bail on it this time. Tickets are twelve bucks and it's at the Orpheum. There is no excuse to miss hanging out at the Orpheum.

I made a video, because I took my camera out for one day while I was on holidays, and I was going to do something with the footage (damn it).

Snowshoeing in the Bow Valley from Laurel K Brown on Vimeo.

I can see the end of the semester without putting on my glasses!

My brainstorming? All arrows.

It's so near! It's almost December!

This semester has been so creatively tumultuous. And I have learned many, many things about how I work, and how I need to work in order to focus the... blast radius? I don't really know what to call it. But yeah.

Screenwriting was really stressing me out this semester. It's since gotten much better, but for three months it was just dragging. I'd get things down on paper but they wouldn't be... useful, or complete thoughts or anything. I started reviewing books I read in middle and high school to dredge up some feelings/ideas for my grad film. I'm hoping it'll end up being a piece that is both nostalgic for me and an audience. But only time will tell, for that one. My idea of it's purpose seems to change a little bit, every day - so we'll just have to see. Well, today it changed a lot actually. And it felt pretty good. The script's on it's merry way again.

Editing my Fall semester film has been taxing. I've learned a lot going back and seeing what worked and what did not. The entire process, however, is proving quite a challenge. This week I'll be remedying some absent transitions with stop motion animation. I'm hoping it'll give the film more of a whimsical flare, and unite the scenes. I got some great feedback last week regarding my cut, and now it's happily bumbling along.

This semester's lessons have come about in interesting ways, and having mostly to do with what I enjoy doing in the production process, what I still need to learn, and what I simply have no skills in whatsoever. I don't very much enjoy screenwriting. I like writing novels, when I can use prose to weave anything I want. I find screenplays rather restrictive, I suppose, while not being that great at writing them at all. I really enjoy pre-visuals, storyboarding, picking colour pallets, I enjoy set work, being behind the camera. Editing is a task I will give a second chance to only if it's dealing with someone else's footage. Having to stare at mistakes I've made both as a director and a photographer over and over again are exhausting and infinitely frustrating.

In the 'I feel weird about humans' news department, I continue to be confused by most people. Respect is still a weird thing in my books. How it ebbs and flows, not only other people's reflections on myself, but my own judgements on others - and reasons why I make those judgements. It's hard not to endlessly stew over someone not wanting to spend time with you any more, or why they don't talk to you, or want to work with you. It's all very curious stuff. Most of which, I doubt will come clear in my life time. So, I'm going to see how stepping away from stewing about it feels, because it seems to be doing the trick.

I'm glad Vancouver has decided to throw us some nicer days in with the rain. With each year that passes, the rain becomes increasingly bothersome in it's capacity to just... make a not-quite-right day into a horrible one. Laundry day, not so bad. Laundry day when it's pouring rain out, the dickens. Had a lame day in class, forgets umbrella - hellish trip home. But those patches of sunshine have sure been sweet surprises!

I also got an iPhone a few weeks ago. Instagram ftw! I sort of hate it, but I sort of really love it. Want to be instagram buddies? I can definitely see myself just instagraming the business out of Christmas shenanigans this year. Just so you know.

The next ten days will be brimming with tiredness, finding frantic holds in the creative process, knuckling down and learning some science... etc. It's going to be very busy. Screenplays due, cut/sound mix/colour grade to be delivered, so much studying to do. But after my last exam next Sunday, it's Christmas potluck time - then briskly home the next day. It's going to be a fun one this year.

I'm really excited to go home (oh boy, that's in like... less than two weekss) for Christmas. It's going to be an extended holiday, which I am quite grateful for. I need some time away from Vancouver, it and I have had some good times, but really - we get on each other's nerves. I want to go see some animals other than dilapidated pigeons and hoardes of crows.

Things to Check Out -

OUR SCREENING! Thirteen third year student films! On December 6th, that's this coming Thursday. Like Facebook? Check out our event page! It's free, so what could possibly go wrong?

The His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman. Specifically this edition. I've spent the last few weeks rereading this series and it's just magical and awesome.

Be sure to keep up with production on Rheanna Toy's short film NINA.

The Pacific Cinematheque is having an amazing set of Studio Ghibli films all throughout December! It's the only reason I'll be sad to leave for most of the month! They are absolutely magical films, and I urge you two check one or two or all of them out!

New Years Eve with CANADIAN FRAME(LINES)! I think I'll spend my first New Years in Vancouver with these fine folks! Not familiar with them? Check yourself before you wreck yourself!

Production wrap...?

Production having wrapped this past Sunday on my short film 'My Favourite Things' (working title), and taking a couple days hiatus from the footage, it's time for some pre-post-production musings while I get my ProRes conversions. Fun stuff.

It was an exhausting two plus months in pre-production. My reluctance to relinquish control/delegate to others along with a determination to learn the ropes put me in a position of acute stress. I was my own producer, writer, director, cinematographer, oi.

We had tremendous luck with the weather, an animated and responsive few actors (plus a gecko named Neelix), a patient group of actor supervisors and a crew that was more than I could have hoped for. Our set dec looked great - quite different than I had planned, but still absolutely wonderful.

Photo: Marnie Dunbar

Although it looks like we're coming in a chunk over budget, I'd say this was a very worthy journey - as most journeys are. I was able to pace out my resources, explore rental options, play with DSLRs and an excellent lens package assembled from a few different sources. The only major disappointment was my inability to get gear support from my school due to a large number of productions taking place on the same weekend. This caused my budget for gear to skyrocket, which always puts me on edge a bit. Although, now that I'm destitute, I get to eat set leftovers for the foreseeable future.

Some things to keep in mind during production:

• Feed your actors and your crew well, they're not being paid (on an indie/student set anyways) - treat them to something nice

• Consistent crew over your shoot days is prime, you get a bit of a community thing going on, everyone is on the same page at the start and end of every day

• Get yourself a dynamite art director, we had a supreme set dec combo costumes/script supervisor and it was organized, efficient and effective

• Also get yourself a dynamite AD who knows their business, how to schedule and when to step in when things are getting behind - we were able to wrap two of our three days early because we had an effective game plan for the weekend

• Do your research and ask questions when going into any kind of rental house - they appreciate competent, patient, polite people going there for business, especially if you're a student

• Have someone new on your set? Get to know them, take them out for coffee - and make sure they know they're part of the team when they come onto set - strangers on set is a variable that is totally avoidable, it gives you a chance to make new acquaintances instead of just utilizing them as crew

• Don't miss an opportunity to make a good impression - keep your cool, even if you're behind schedule, even if something isn't quite panning out the way you want it to - keeping an even keel wont fail in keeping your crew behind you, your shots done on time, your head clear and everybody happy

• Be generous with your time - even if you're a super busy director/producer type, always take the time for any single person on your team - there is no reason not to know everyone's name, what their role is, and any possible obstacles they may be personally overcoming on the set - it's a student/indie set, you don't have a PR devision for your 200+ crew, and your volunteers deserve some attention

We had a remarkably chill set, although I was stressing on the inside pretty hard, I felt at ease knowing that my cast and crew were at ease. I'll state again how vital and fantastic my cast and crew were to the completion of the production stage of this film.

Photo: Marnie Dunbar

Directing wasn't as harrowing as I thought it'd be - working with kids was great. My next challenge will be working with some people in and around my age for my next semester project.

With grad film proposals all handed in, my mind's been buzzing about three short films simultaneously. Next semester calls for a small budget, on-the-fly shoot - maybe an improv-type of script. It'll be a completely different experience, I'm sure of that. And that's one thing I love about film - I have been on dozens of sets in the past year, and quite frankly - I've never had the same experience twice, even if I'm working with the same people.

The production of 'My Favourite Things' coming to a close, a load is off my mind - but the marathon of post-production stretches out before me. The nightmare is seeing if I actually got sufficient coverage. I'm also hoping to do some little bits of stop motion animation to whimsical-up my film. Should be interesting.

Mark your calendars now - SFU's 3rd year screening is on December 6th!

Some things to look at:

Vice's web series Fashion Internationale, which Jezebel introduced me too. The fashion elements don't interest me as much, but the culture is fascinating. I think about changing North American culture quite a bit - it's really neat (and terrifying, in a way) to see it happen in other countries in different and similar measures. Not to mention exploring beauty standards abroad.

Ten best cafés in Vancouver.

Oh bother.

“When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen.” 

― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Smaller, more feeble brainstorms

Fall's here. There are large spiders amassing some sort of army in my back yard. There is a single pumpkin in the pumpkin patch. There are large scale brainstorms taped to my bedroom wall. And we go to picture in three weeks! It's this extreme combo of explosive excitement and withering fear. It's a tremendous rush, this challenge. I know there are going to be many that are similar in nature to it, but never twice the same. 

I'm so excited to have other people excited about my project. It's like... extrapolated excitedness. I've gotten a pile of submissions for auditions, and I just feel grateful Vancouver has such a large, strong and many-tiered acting community. Casting is something I've never done on my own before, and it's a combination of waiting, scheduling, papers (flying everywhere), but ultimately, I'm finding the experience quite rewarding. A few friends have really helped me out in getting my 'casting legs' and I really owe them a great deal. Especially when I text them with panicked, insignificant questions at all hours; 'SO WHAT IF THIS HAPPENS', 'DO I NEED TO DO THIS?', 'WHAT IF EVERYONE HATES ME?!' etc.

The beginnings of much, much larger brainstorms

I'm doing all of these new things like casting and prop renting and gear renting and doing a bunch of copyright research (oh god). It's hurdle after hurdle, but everything is quite attainable. Often through the  help of other souls' wisdom and Google, that is. There are so many ways to go about getting things done in pre-production. Although, I know it would be tons easier with a production manager, I see great value in stepping through the process a few times alone, seeing how I fare - taking the time to recognize how long some of these processes take and the hoops you've got to jump through sometimes to get an answer. I don't know, I'm pretty stoked on it.

It seems every week has a bit of a 'themed worry', i.e. last week I flipped about gear shortages combo money shortages and having to deal with rental houes. This week, the theme seems to be casting jitters (large LARGE casting tremors). Next week, whooo knooows. Probably props. Let's just call next week, 'The week Laurel freaks about props'. By the time we go to picture, everything will come full circle. We'll finish shooting, I'll go into short term hibernation (also called torpor, hummingbirds do it - science!), disappear for a few days, then come back relatively right as rain. By then I can stress about editing until the end of tiiiime. Hopefully, I can budget my time (ha) to accomodate some tiny, but rich, stop motion animated scenes into my film (which also might have a sort of working title now) - I got pretty amped on stop motion again after seeing ParaNorman.

I bought a new tea pot, I am pleased

It's pretty great to be writing again. The screenwriting class I have semester has been a lot of work so far, but it just sort of opened up some doors that haven't been opened for some time. The class demands fairly large assignments each week, but they're very open. The more I get to writing, the easier it comes to me, the more I enjoy it. Whether I am improving or not is to be seen, but it's becoming less of a chore.

Anyways.

Sorry the photos are so boring this week. I'm waiting for some 35mm film scans to come back from the lovely humans at CustomColor and Beau Photo. Then there will be so many photos!

It's inching towards sweater weather people, break out 'dem long sleeves!

Feast your brain upon:

I definitely got stuck in a YouTube loop with Vsauce 2 the other day. Just a short, periodically released video about cool mechanics and tech. Plus! There's links to anything, so you can do some learnin'.

An awesome article on this nutburgers sabre-toothed herbivore that once roamed the Earth.

Check out the fundraiser for the City of Vancouver Archives! Old photographs! Huzzah!

The event of the year, second only, maybe, to Christmas - VIFF kicked off today! Pick up a catalogue and pick out some new, wild things to see! Also come visit! I'm volunteering at the wonderful, wonderful Vancity Theater.

Super-congratulations to Sophie Jarvis, a recent film graduate of SFU, who landed her short grad film 'Worst Day Ever' at VIFF (amongst a bunch of other festivals) make sure you catch it in the short program Break Even!

Here we go...

"We gather knowledge faster than we gather wisdom."

This semester, I've been working on developing a daily routine. Things I need to do every day, things that need to get done every day, regardless. A medley of tidying, practicing the ukulele, writing, watching a movie or two, doing so much ecology reading. Perhaps in ritual I can get this semester under control and have it maintained in such a state, that in the weeks I approach my shoot, the rest of my life doesn't just... deflate/collapse/spontaneously combust.

Oh yeah. So I'm shooting in five weeks. My first largeish-scale, solo venture.

Broccoli I grew. NBD.

I've got ideas flying all over the place for my first semester film, as well as for my grad film (yeah, that's coming up quicker than I anticipated). Now that I've finally got my first draft completed and my gear list in, the only thing that feels all wiggly and in the way of my confidence is casting - and that's only because I've never done it before and it's a little intimidating. More so because I'm casting a quartet of kids. Oh, and a gear/crew situation that continues to worsten every time I check up on it. But we'll deal with that... later.

The shoot seems like a long ways away at this point, but I know it's going to sneak up on me like nobody's business. But knowing what I want is an incredible feeling. After being stuck on page four of my screenplay since sometime in July, I forced myself to sit down and complete the first draft. No sleep, I said, til it's done. The next day was just astounding (equal parts excitement, accomplishment, and drifting on three hours sleep). My gear list was easy to build, thoughtfully extrapolate and submit. It's so stupendous. I can see how this is going to roll. And I feel it's going to go well.

My excited anxiousness reminds me a lot of my trepidation going into my two productions for first year... except my brain seems so much more organized. There's still fear (if you come onto set one day and you're not afraid, really, what's the point of coming onto set at all), but it's a controlled fear, a much more logical fear. A fear I can get excited about? Maybe? I have a notebook and in it are lists of things, 'current problems', 'potential problems', 'things to avoid'. But these are right alongside the things I feel more positive about - budgets and props, lighting and camera. It's (so far) balancing out to a very zen experience. Everything, right now, seems within my grasp.

To get myself all mentally geared up for my shoot, I've selected a pile of books and DVDs to sort of set me off in similar directions. Either stylistically or inspiring character details or camera angles. I tried to do this last year, but found it very difficult to keep up with how the idea of our film evolved. I seem to have a fairly clear visual look for the film, and the challenge for me in the pre-production phase and on set is making sure that vision is understood by everyone. That's something I had problems with in my second year as well, but that's what's so supreme about third year - you really get to march to the beat of your own drum.

I also bought a uke recently. Yiss.

Coming from a different, but perhaps, equally tumultuous part of my brain, is some thoughts about the relationships between people. I find as I get older, it's easier to observe my actions from a more objective standpoint much sooner after a happening. From these observations, I can kind of patch together some reasons I end up doing things, or reacting the way I do. Fixing habits is much easier said than done, but I think it's a step in the right direction (after all). It's funny how much I get hung up on people, being liked by people. Not even people in general, certain people. While I have people in my life who care, my thoughts often do not go to them first. My thoughts get tossed in this bottomless pit of nothing. It's times like this when I'm reminded how important these characters in my life are, the ones who I can talk to and be myself around.

My older self seems to be gaining insight on my younger self.

To all those embarking on shooting in these coming weeks, best of luck! I look forward to seeing more stupendous work coming out of this year.


Things to look at:

I've started a Tumblr for some of my photos! Badger Brown.

Mantees that calm the soul.

In a round about sort-of way.

Well, a frivolous holiday already come and gone, school started again this week with a weird unfamiliarity with being around people and being so inexcusably out of my comfort zone I could hardly stand it. As of yesterday I'm on my first student film crew of the year, gaffing a grad film - it feels really good. Even the sound of gels being rolled up had a certain je-ne-sais-pas. It's exciting to be learning again, although this semester's workload is extraordinarily daunting. But, the more I think about it, the more I think it's the right kind of workload that keeps me on my feet, not in the crazy house (with any luck). 

I'm still getting fairly ahead of myself with my first semester film, but the script is puttering a long to the eventual completion of the first draft. It'll be a challenge, as I'm incorporating a little bit of everything in it (cinematography-wise): a bit of indoor, outdoor and stop-motion photography. I've started to pull together bits and pieces of crew as I go along. Some large issues that are summing up nicely in the form of panicked jolts in the middle of the night are: time (in general), casting, finances and some critical crew positions I feel unprepared to fill. The chunks of wisdom I've gathered from this week have helped me a little to get back on my feet and start thinking about things in a more organized fashion. I've short listed some films to revisit in lieu of this script, to be brought into a style scheme and mindset. I'm hoping this weekend I can complete a first draft and start assembling a basic style package to pass on to my art director (ooooooooo, I've got one of those).

35mm photography (dispersed throughout this post) has been a great jumping point for me this past month into the exploration of creating depth and texture in photos. While keeping me familiar with the medium of film, it keeps me on the up and up about primes and zoom lenses, and it's actually made me much more aware of light on a day-to-day basis. Photography for me, is more of an exercise than an art form at this point, but I do really enjoy the experience of it. Seeing what I can capture, testing different stocks, seeing the results of an error and being delighted with the effect. I've been shooting mostly black and white, to keep me searching for tone, background/foreground differentiation and how to make a subject interesting without colour. It's actually given me a great deal of confidence going into this semester, where I plan to shoot and direct a short film - despite that people keep cringing every time I tell them my plan to do so. The next step to that is to be able to grant my confidence to a camera operator and a gaffer to enable me to move about my set freely. That's the kicker.

Back in Canmore last week I had some smaller adventures - camping in Elbow Valley, stalking a great grey owl with my Nikon, highland dancing in the beer tent at the Canmore Highland Games, going to a different store to buy pants (good god), getting all your drinks paid for because a friend's making loads more money than you, cheese fondues, so much brie for breakfast, rediscovering the wonders of trail mix, failing at making a pretty cake (just tasted good, I guess), introducing my family to some super cinema (Take Shelter) and eating expensive Alberta sushi. The trip felt rather short, but it was nice to catch up on some sleep, see some people I only see once or twice in a year, plus I rather enjoy chilling with my parents (and my dog) - but it sounds like this winter I'll be coming home for two or three weeks, giving me loads of time to muck about the valley.

I hope everyone is having a solid start to their academic year!

A video you should watch, because fish are radical - so is MBARI: