Diary of a film school student - First Project

The rules for my first project at the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking were quite clear: create a short film that runs less than 3 minutes, evokes an emotion and doesn't use any text or sync sound. This may sound very easy at first, but creating something innovative within these limitations was quite a challenge.

Luckily, it was a great challenge, and also one that taught me a lot. Once again, I learned that respecting the camera is the best way to succeed in the field and in post-production. Additionally, this exercice forced me to put a hold on my 'big' ideas and keep things incredibly simple.

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Diary of a film school student - Week 3

Week 3 of my year at the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking was incredibly intense. I say that in a good way though, because I took home a massive dose of crucial tips and tricks about properly lighting a film. Our instructor Stephen is a true lighting guru, and he sure knows what he's talking about.

Anyway, we covered everything from color temperatures to correction gels, party gels and the aspects of hard and soft light. We talked about the numerous ways to soften and cut light, and we were pulled into the fascinating world of three-point lighting as well. It truly was an exhausting, yet highly engaging week.

The most interesting part for me personally was our introduction to the six basic lighting patterns: Rembrandt, Short and Broad Loop, Split, Rim and Paramount. Each of these patterns really make a difference when it comes to setting up your shots, and they obviously each have their own rules.

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Diary of a film school student - Week 2

Again, I apologize for posting this late, but many things are going on at the moment, and when I'm not shooting or sitting in class, I'm sitting in a movie theater or typing up some movie stuff. But let's cut to the chase: Week 2 of my year at the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking.

What I really like about this school is that they slowly introduce you to the craft of filmmaking but at the same time make sure that you as the student are getting as much first-hand experience as possible. The second week introduced us to using filters to our advantage and grapsing the pros and cons of using natural light.

So, rather than having us start with artificial lighting, our intructor first made us go out and experiment with sunlight. Of course, sunlight is not always ideal, but it's important to know how natural light works if you plan to shoot outside and you don't have an entire lighting kit with you.

What we also talked about during week two was depth of field, a tool I particularly love to use already. With this you can control the area in front of and behind your subject, which is in focus. It looks great and is pretty easy to handle as well. The rest of the week we spent prepping our first project, which I will describe in detail in a separate entry.

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Diary of a film school student - Week 1

Maintaining a film blog and being a full-time student pretty much keeps me busy all day every day, so I apologize for not getting to launch this online diary earlier. That said, it's definitely time for me to start sharing my thoughts and experiences here at the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking.

So, why not start at the very beginning? Things moved along a little slower at SFSDF the first week, which is obvious, considering everything still feels a little new, you need some time to meet the fellow students, and the instructors need some time to introduce you to the program, schedule and rules.

That said, it's not like we didn't get a chance to be creative during week one. On the contrary, our first assignment consisted out of grabbing our point-and-shoot camera and exploring the neighborhood, taking pictures of whatever we wanted and picking the two we liked best.

The following day, our instructor Stephen would critique our picks fairly, before sending us out a second time with a bunch of tips on how to shoot some interesting pictures. I truly loved this first mission, and I admit I was happy we immediately got to go out and do something, which this program is all about.

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