The Long and Full Semester
The Spring 2022 semester was a chaotic but fulfilling semester full of things to learn and be proud of. During this semester I officially declared that I’ll be graduating in December 2022, participated in FVS 442: Directing the Narrative Short Film, and continued my FVS Social Media Internship. Suffice it to say, this semester helped me continue my past efforts and set me up for a future that I am looking forward to discovering.
Directing for Class and Working on Other’s Projects
It would be an understatement to say that I have been looking forward towards taking this class. In the past, I have created several short films (with Fall 2021 having the most), yet this class was meant to give me the opportunity to work with the guidance of an instructor. The additional plus side was that this class challenged us to work with other students. For me, this meant no longer being the sole creator or just working with my friend Josh Blessinger, but instead having a larger crew and cast.
At times the class greatly benefited from my internship and past experiences when making my short films outside of class. This came in the form of advertising, posters, and the reserving of a room for the class’s casting call. I also ended up creating a spreadsheet and online folder so that all the students can work together on selecting our actors, when we were filming, and over all be better coordinated despite having 11 to 12 different projects to create.
Later on I would make the poster for the short film showcase. As a result, I not only helped advertise all of the projects (including BTS posts) but I played an active role in setting up how the FVS students perceived the class projects. This all lead to a successful showcase for all of the projects that were presented.
Love Pursuit, Script and Production
Before all of this, I had to write the script for my short film “Love Pursuit”. This took the form of several scripts, each undergoing improvements. At times, these each had edits that drastically changed the way I saw my own story and the characters within.
Logline: His crush matches moments right before he was about to ask him out on a date. Now he has to disrupt their planned date and if possible elevate his friendship to romance.
Production ended up going smoothly with nearly everything planned being filmed without much complication. While we ended up spending more time then I had scheduled actually filming, everyone was accommodating, allowing for us to finish the shoot.
What followed was two months of editing (where I mostly worked on other classes where papers suddenly started sucking my time). During this time, I was able to receive the most feedback and criticism on one of my films to-date, ensuring that my final product has quality. Consequently, I am proud of the final film even as I reflect on what I wished and the cuts I made in service of the final short film’s needs.
Group photo of most of “Love Pursuit” cast (unmasked) and crew (masked) after filming.
Other’s Productions
Working on Set:
In addition to my short film “Love Pursuit” I ended up working on three other FVS 442 projects and the FVS 499 film capstone project. For all of these projects, I had different amounts of input, say, and labeled credit.
For instance, in “All Clear” I am credited as Producer however in reality, my main role was Boom Operator with some additional Production Assistant support. While I am credited as Producer, the reality is that from my perspective, I had less input into the short film (I only saw the finished product the night of the showcase for instance and didn’t do any producer work before or during the project) and most served as a warm body.
Then in “(Never) Good Enough” and the capstone project “The Exile” I received varying credits but both times I worked a combination between production assistant, cinematographer, and camera assistant (with more cinematography work being on “The Exile”). For both of these films, I ended up working a day of their shoots, leaving most of the gathered footage up to others and unseen by me until their debuts.
Working in Post-Production:
Finally, for “Crossroads” I did not work on its production (though I did get to read the script and give feedback in pre-production!), instead I worked on the project’s post-production. Here, the director did the edit and assembly, meanwhile I worked on the film’s color and sound. Consequently, while I did not film or help film any of the shots, my role meant that I polished and impacted every element of the short film from its fade-in to its fade-out into credits.
The one critique I could give myself is not being more relaxed and forgiving on my body. Instead, I did all of the color-grading and audio in one 15 hour period (11:30am – 3:00am, with a short break for dinner), negatively impacting my physical health and the amount of sleep I got that night. Nonetheless, the director and I were pleased with the finished results.
In my opinion, this is my favorite additional production I worked on this particular semester.
The Continuing Social Media Internship
After the Fall Semester, I had a month of posts pre-scheduled for the semester. During this time I prepared variation borders for different post types, and began planning the posts that would come out this semester.
Thanks to the FVS 442 class occurring this semester I planned to have Behind the Scene posts for the different student films alongside general advertising for the class showcase. Beyond this, I was instructed to upload and schedule the 2021 FVS 442 projects (after getting permissions from the various directors) in the lead up to the showcase. All of this helped me fill out most of the posts for this semester without having to create new graphics.
One of the unexpected things this semester surrounded past Purdue FVS Alumni. Without prompting, several alumni reacted out to the social media accounts or to the department chair. The first, a 2008 alumni, sought to recognize two recent grads. Then, the second (no post) offered to chat about their experiences post-Purdue, something I took them up on during the spring break. Finally, the third alumni was recognized for their TV Directorial Debut.
This semester, my internship primarily involved organizing outside submitted material, FVS 442 promotion, and updating the FVS YouTube (with new titles and descriptions for most of the videos). Then, at the end of the semester I helped organize congratulation posts for this year’s graduates so that my supervisor could make the graphics for each of them. While I did not make as many graphics this semester, I did write the text for almost all of the posts and continued to keep the department informed of what is happening in and outside of the majors. Before leaving, I scheduled the holiday posts out through Martin Luther King Day 2023 as a parting gift.
Post Graphics
Papers and Contests
Class Papers:
Like most semesters, I have several papers I am proud of. Most of my papers this semester were for my English class “American Literature Before 1865,” and while I am proud of these papers, I am most pleased with the paper I wrote for my Women Gender and Sexuality Class: “Making Schools Welcoming”. This said, it has felt like a trend that my favorite papers involve researching current problems surrounding LGBTQIA+ individuals.
Contests:
An exciting thing that happened this semester involved work that I did during past semesters. The first involves the Purdue Literary Awards where I won first place for my College Freshman Essay “Adapting Shakespeare: Plot from Play to Film”. Then, my favorite project from Spring 2021 has made a return to the limelight with “Planes of Being” getting selected for the 21th Anniversary 2022 Virtual Dumbo Dance Festival! This was all thanks to the wonderful choreographer, Kat Hickey, as they were the one to submit the dance and help let it get recognition beyond last year’s showcase (in addition to being a great person to introduce me to contemporary dance). All of this sets up an exciting next and final semester!