48hr film festival went good, presentation went kinda bad

The 48hr film festival certainly was an experience, but like the last time, i don't really have time to elaborate, plus it's 9.42am and i plan to go back to sleep cos i slept at 4am and for some reason just woke up to use the loo and subconsciously heard my phone ring before that. So naturally i checked my phone to find that Milan (this 30 or 40 something guy from Czechoslovakia who was the Director of Photography and SteadiCam operator on the 48hr shoot) called and apparently left a voicemail message which i have yet to hear and also that Annika left me a message asking about Unit prices that i managed to get quotes of and which she hasn't and she has asked nicely so i am willing to give them to her even though she's not in my group for the budget thingy. She asked yesterday, i promised to send them to her and kinda forgot after all that happened yesterday afternoon---my 50% presentation for my Sound, Image, Text unit.

But i'll get to that in another paragraph or two. So now it's 10mins to 10 and i'm sitting here eating cereal cos i feel hungry and something tells me i won't go back to sleep plus i have too much to do to waste time sleeping, i should really start reading what's left of the readings for Film Genres and should download the take home test from Blackboard of Sound, Image, Text and get cracking. Meeting my budget group (Tracey and Chris) later this afternoon at 2pm, then later on going for a movie (Good Luck Chuck) with Kannan, something that i know will be a bad film but will be light enough to take our minds off the looming exams... just for 1 and a half hours. Plus we didn't get to hang out over the weekend like we normally do cos of the 48hr film festival.

Back to the topic, the 48 hr film festival... well well... i'm not exactly sure how many teams were there, but on my count, the estimated number of teams that went up on stage to roll the "genre dice" was around 20. So about 20 teams i say. Will find out who wins at the screenings on the 6th of November, which conveniently enough, is also the day of the screenings for our Narrative Production group project (the one we shot up at Mt. Tamborine) AND is CONVENIENTLY ENOUGH A DAY BEFORE MY FILM GENRES EXAM. Gosh... Don't you just love bad timing? Anyway, i digress, we just so happened to get musical/western, which we later decided to do musical. I jinxed it though, i was talking to Truls (i dragged him on board to do sound) while the other teams were rolling the "genre dice" and i said, "gosh, it'd be really interesting if we get musical, but it'd be more work for you and it'd be hard to shoot. Hmm... yeah, anything else but musical would be best." And sure enough, haha... what are the odds???? we get musical. I should really learn to shut my mouth... Anyway, long story short, we shot at this beautiful church on Saturday from 8am-about 10pm. That's a 14 hr work day people, was so tired that even though i'd decided to sit in on editing that was going on at John's place just across the road (around where the fish and chips shop is), i called Truls who was supposed to wake me up after his shower and nap around 1.30am (so we could walk there together) and told him to go without me. Truls moved to Newmarket, so he's staying much closer than before and is less lazy to come to uni, but he's still lazy to walk. So... you get the point. Anyway, i passed up that chance of learning more about Avid in one night (or more like morning). But like i said, i was way way way too tired. So i've come to terms with my decision to sleep instead of sit up and watch them edit til the sun came up.

Guess what, i just checked Milan's voicemail, he says he might have a job for me and that i should call him back... teensy weeny tiny problem---it's in December. Haha... Mom, dad, friends (anyone? hahaha) looks like i might be coming home later than expected. Anyway, Killian (the director for our 48 hr film fest team) told me that Milan said i was very helpful on set and that he enjoyed working with me and later that night (Sunday), Milan told me himself what he told Killian and said he was really looking forward to working with me. That is great... Really just sugar to my ears. Oh, by the BY, haha, i forgot to update you on the lighting assistant position i was waiting for, my friend Lea (with whom i was in the same group as for Foundations of Film and TV Production last semester where we did the mockumentary) just so happened to call me one night, not knowing i "applied" for the job cos the producer, Jacqueline has been too busy to get back to me. Anyway, Lea calls and asks if i'd like to work on "Doll Story", i tell her i've been waiting for a reply on that and Lea said she'd seal the deal for me... Friends are great aren't they? Haha... as usual, all my friends are usually great, emphasis on the 'usually' ;)

Anyway, the next day i get several emails from Lea saying that the lighting people might not want a GIRL for the job cos there's heavy lifting and all that but i could be assistant boom operator if i don't get the assistant lighting position i want just so i get some experience on a real set cos they're using 16mm. But she had to speak to the director first to see if i was on board. But i tell her that heavy lifting shouldn't be a problem... cos i do it all the time at Subway, kinda comes with the job. THE next day, she sends me another email saying i'm definitely in, but my position is yet to be determined, so basically i'm still waiting on that.

But, i just called Milan back... apparently he "spoke to this producer yesterday" for a horror feature film called Dark Lurking?? that'll be shot around "early December (starts on the 3rd and goes on for 2 weeks)". Milan just called to ask if it was okay to give my number to the producer so he could contact me directly, i said yes of course! Milan told me that he "highly recommends" me because i am "very hardworking on set". Everything in quotation marks in this paragraph are direct quotes of what he said. Sorry if it seems like i'm bragging, i'm just happy... a happy person in lack of the regular 8 hours, this is what i sound like... like this. But this is not a sure thing, waiting for a call from the producer, a Mr Stewart Wall to contact me after Milan gives him my number. Hopefully that'll be soon so i can change my tickets... If not, i may not be coming home in December.

Oh, and i lied, it took me 4 paragraphs to get here... my presentation and accompanying essay. I completed the essay exactly a week ago from yesterday and had to do a 10 minute presentation in class on my analysis of a two-minute excerpt from any movie/music video/music track/whatever, i picked Night Watch. Anyway, i started thinking out the structure of my presentation last week and asked Liz, my tutor, if it would be okay for me to play the clip and go through it bit by bit, breaking down all the sounds and images and the relationship between them and all, at the time, i told her i'd play the clip without interruption for the first two-minutes like everyone else, but then i'd go through it again. SHE told me i could just straight up go through the clip without playing it continuously, i could just start and go through it. At the time i remember thinking that wouldn't work, cos it would be annoying and i'd be interrupting their listening of the soundtrack in its entirety. But i didn't actually start rehearsing until Monday night (yes, after the 48hr film festival over the weekend). I resorted to Liz's "recommended" structure (the one where i interrupt every 5 seconds) because there was too much to talk about and if i used her method, i could fit everything in, whereas if i'd played the clip once, then played it again to start talking over it, i would've run out of time like she said i would.

So... the whole thing is that i rehearsed my presentation using my Windows Media Player to play the DVD so i could easily jump to the exact minute and exact second by just the click of the mouse, i was fully set and my presentation would've been exactly 10 minutes, believe it or not. BUT... the computer in the tute room always stuffs up and Liz told me to use the DVD player instead for which she had a remote for. This, was completely different to how i'd rehearsed my presentation (if you can imagine), cos this was like using the stupid remote control to fast forward or rewind the damn thing, whereas on Windows Media Player, you can just click and drag on the timeline and get wherever you want. So this was a drag... no pun intended. Thing is that she'd already told me to use the dvd player right from the start, but i said i'd like to try using the computer instead of that, so i sorta "disobeyed" her there, if you know what i mean, nothing major or anything. But the computer wouldn't play it cos QUT computers are fishing retarded, so i had to switch to the DVD player which i wasn't used to and the DVD as all DVDs do nowadays, take ages to load... like 1 and a half minutes... then i took up more time trying to find that scene i wanted... yada yada... this of course was not included in my 10 minutes, but i was taking up valuable time and there were 3 more presentations after me and a tute which is supposed to go on for an hour, normally goes on for 50 minutes max. You get the picture.

When i finally got it going and presented in the "style" that she recommended last week, halfway through, because of my incessant pausing and playing and pausing and playing to talk between every few seconds of the excerpt, she says, "actually, could you not do that? it's a bit distracting. Maybe just play it for a bit longer..." OKAY... FINE... so i did... that, obviously changed the structure of my presentation as i was no longer going on audiovisual cues from watching the excerpt to talk about stuff, i was accumulating all the points i was supposed to talk about so the clip could run longer. But i adjusted. At the end of my 2 minute excerpt and after all the explaining, i was supposed to find another short excerpt to prove my point, but cos i couldn't just click and drag like in Media Player, and had to use the bloody remote and skip through chapters, i didn't get to show it in time and while i was skipping through the chapters, Liz said to the timekeeper, "actually... how are we going for time?". The timekeeper, this nice Singaporean guy named Matthew, was, if i might say, again not to brag, but more like to make myself feel better about my shitty presentation, was so immersed in my presentation that he forgot to signal me at 8 minutes. As Matthew checked his watch, i was exactly at 10 minutes. So without being able to find the excerpt i was supposed to show, i asked, "oh, do you want to me stop then? (Liz nods) Ok." Liz says, "Yeah, cos we've really got to move on, there are more presentations to get through, sorry." I say, "yeah, sure. alright then." So i stop the player, take my DVD out, and just as the guy in-charge of the lights turns them on, i walk to my seat. Applause was... minimal (maybe cos there were only 7 people in class as opposed to the normal 20 or so?? Or am i just saying that to console myself? Cos it's the final week of uni and people are lazy to come to tutes... not cos people walked out during my presentation). Normally, if you give a good presentation, you get a loud applause. But i've been thinking that maybe it was the abrupt way i ended my presentation, know what i mean? But to my surprise, after the presentation, i sat back down and checked my notes, i went through everything that i'd planned to. So basically, i didn't miss out any information... So why? why? why? why? why do i feel like i did terribly? That for some reason is still a mystery. I've been trying to isolate the "problem" and find the root, but i can't seem to find an answer to why i feel like it went bad, when in reality, i put forth all the information i intended to and i wasn't nervous or anything so my delivery was satisfactory (according to my standards)... Arghhh.... but what's done is done. The way i see it, i did my best and presented the way i would've presented anything, and the reason i chose to present this way was because soooo many people before me have just brought their essays up front, shown the clip and later read their essays out loud in front of the class. I mean, that is not a presentation is it? They hid behind the pages of their bloody essays! No eye contact with the audience! What is this?? Primary school? There were some good presentations though, but very few. Surely she'd see beyond my disobedience about the DVD player and possibly in her mind, my terribly structured presentation (that required her to interrupt and ask that i play the clip a little longer before pausing and talking about the audiovisual elements then pressing play again) and the way i abruptly ended my presentation?

Well, i'll be getting my results on this assignment in the mail, the E mail, sometime next week. Oh... the terror... because other tutors will be mediating our work, hopefully my essay will bring up the presentation side of my marks. But i felt shitty and when your gut is unsettled about something, it can't be good. Not much i can do now though, got to concentrate on the upcoming gigantic wave... the budget and accompanying essay is due next monday. Hoorah! Then i'll have 2 more to go... a film genres exam and my sound, text, image take home test (doesn't look easy at all) which i'll have to do damn good in or else i might see another fishing four on my "report card". But i will not apologize to myself or my parents until i see my final grades.

Ooo... my alarm clock just rang... wake up call. Looks like i've blogged the rest of my sleeping time away. So that's all for now. Thanks for reading and thanks for caring!