Reflections of the Southern Institute of Technology, Part 1

Well some time has passed now since being in attendance at the Southern Institute of Technology, SIT for short. It is only after spending this time away from the place that I can make some clearer observations of my time spent there, and the implications thus far.

I came into the SIT, in particular the Digital Media Bachelor programme, as I'm sure many did in high spirits and with a lot of hope towards the future. Most of us were assured that this course was exactly for us, and that we would be able to grow and hone our skills all the while learning and having fun. It definitely started out that way, and with Karen Love as our programme manager things started off very well indeed. Karen, like another couple of our tutors, was originally from America so of course offered a different perspective. She turned out to be a surprising wealth of knowledge, and during classes with her I was always overwhelmed by the sheer amount of wisdom and the differing perspectives offered by her. She was very interested in Mythology, Feminism and of course Films, and had been a University professor for many years before hand. The other tutors were good as well, we had Pete who was originally from Australia taking us for the pratical side of things, and he always got excited in student projects and generally anything you told him about. Patrick was our tutor for screenwriting and sound design, and he also had a lot of experience and stories to share with us.

Myself and Michael had already tried making a couple of short videos before starting the course, and with the help of Steven, a like minded student, we started off on our first project right at the start of the year together which was The Storybook. I rushed together a script very quickly which was roughly based off one I had done for the screenwriting class, and with our limited knowledge and skills we shot the entire thing in a few days. It turned out pretty good, of course it had many flaws due to many reasons (one of which the fact that it was edited on buggy Premiere 6.0 on a piece of crap computer), but it got us excited about future projects.

Before this we had only worked on short chase scenes with varying success. Steve's short, Frankie and Louie would serve to be the inspiration for many of his later works, but until our third year we never really managed to recapture how well the chase scene worked. My chase scene, Retard without a Cause, as a fun piece of horror schlock with a script I wrote during another class. Although it was fun to make, I had some continuity errors and the footage was rather grainy due to poor light conditions which the PDX-10 camera couldn't quite handle. At least all the projects back during these times were really fun, and as it would turn out before a lot of our creativity and motivation would be quashed from us.

After these our individual film projects would be made, which included The Ones Outside for me, Numb from Michael and Natalie's Dream from Steve. This was were some of the first problems started to arise, one of which being the extremely limited amount of time spent on developing the scripts. This is one of the problems that plagued almost every movie project done at SIT, and one of the main reasons the general quality of movies made there were generally low. We all had to rush to write a new story, then scramble together to actually try and make it. Although I'm sure we all tried our best, if you start with a bad script its going to be difficult to try and make a good movie out of it. My script was based off an idea I had whilst walking home one night, and while it sounded good to me at the time, later on it became apparent just how many flaws such a story would have. The execution of actually making the movie was also really poor, and because everyone was scrambling to make their own films I didn't receive a lot of help and had to attempt to film the entire 15 minute movie in the space of just over two days. Believe me it showed. Anyway it was all a learning process, and I guess you have to make a lot of bad movies before the good ones come, at least for those of us not blessed with godlike directing or writing skills. Michael faced similar problems, while Steve's movie turned out fairly well considering the time spent making it, although he himself was disappointed with the end result.

These events would serve to be an indication towards a turn for the worse in the upcoming time spent at the SIT, which I will cover in the next post.

Fast Times in Tahoe

Well I finally managed to take a camera with me on the way to work, and since it was a nice clear morning I got some pictures. Most were taken just as the sun was coming up. I walk this way to work every morning which takes just over 30 minutes, and on a nice day like this one the view is quite nice. There's even a frozen lake in the middle of the park I haven't tried skating across just yet. I guess this is one of the things that seperates Canada from New Zealand, because apart from a few blazingly obvious things the two countries do indeed have things in common.

Red: New Scarlet Camera Coming

Scarlet, being titled as the "Pocket Professional Digital Cinema Camera" has been announced on the Red site. Details are extremely slim at the moment, with only a promise that the camera, or at the very least some details of the camera, will be released at the NAB convention in Las Vegas in April.

What is assumed is that the camera will use the same sensor as the Red One camera, and is hoped to include 4K image aquisition. The new camera is thought to be released to directly compete with the new Sony HDCAM EX1, so should fall in a similar price range and will probably include a fixed or included zoom lens.

This is very good news, because although the Red One camera is much cheaper than all other comparable cameras, the $17.5K price tag becomes a lot steeper once you factor in all the accessories and components needed to run the camera to a desirable level, for instance lenses, batteries, media, viewfinder/lcd screen and tripod mount. The Scarlet camera would fit the assumably large gap of people interested in the Red One camera that simply cannot afford its ~$30K inclusive price.

Guess we will wait to see what happens, but if a relatively cheap quality 4K camera is released by the Red company, it has the possibility of entirely changing the film world.

Film Societies in Edmonton

I managed to find a couple of interesting societies/groups in the Edmonton area I could join up with, one called F.A.V.A. (Film and Video Arts Society) and the other being I.A.T.S.E. which is "The I.A.T.S.E. is the labor union representing technicians, artisans, and craftspersons in the entertainment industry, including live theatre, motion picture and television production, and trade shows.".

F.A.V.A. is a society that offers membership, in which you must offer up to 24 hours per year of your time to working on peoples film projects. Its pretty much there to establish contacts, and has full production and post production facilities and discounted gear rentals. You can rent an Arri 35mm camera for $125/day instead of their usual price of $500/day, although I probably wouldn't end up using a film camera for one of my own projects. Not that I wouldn't like to, but you have to take into consideration the film stock and processing costs as well.

I.A.T.S.E. on the other hand is obviously a more professional, industry related union. In order to become even an associate member I have to take a day course at the Grant MacEwan polytechnic here called "Set Etiquette and Protocol". Once you are an associate member you have the opportunity of being offered jobs in certain aspects of major productions that full members have passed up, and after that as a full member you can be contracted out etc.

So sounds like I might be able to get some experience here after all which is good news. It'll be interesting to see how everything works in a film industry similar to our own, but of course much larger in scale. Links are as follows: F.A.V.A. and I.A.T.S.E.

On working at The Source

Well time is flying by on the approach to Christmas, and I haven't had much of a chance to do anything except the current prerequisites of working, eating and sleeping. I basically seem to be working every single day, with the rare once in a blue moon opportunity of a day off. Its not so bad though, working at The Source is actually easier than any job I've previously had, and I've had a fair few of them.

Time usually passes by rather quickly, and most of the time you just answer customer questions or attempt to help them with stuff. A lot of my job seems to entail being asked about certain products or brands, and trying to make up stories about them since most of the time I have no idea about them. It works most of the time too, how are they to know any better?

Commission can be a good thing too because the smarter you work the more you get paid, which is highly different from most the other jobs I've done. The last couple of days I earnt $18 CDN / hour. The people there are quite nice too which always helps. I've really got to work on getting some more pictures up now that I actually have use of a camera.

On an unrelated note I came across a Film Alberta website which publicizes filming in the province of Alberta, I might be able to find some experience through there or at least some nice filming locations if I could ever do anything here in the near future. The link is here for any interested in taking a look.

New Job

Well I landed a job on pretty much the first day I set out to look for one, I went into The Source which is basically the same as Dick Smith Electronics back in New Zealand and they wanted me to work that night. Seven working days later, with two more to go, I'm still working there without any days of break in-between. Well at least its more suited to my interests and knowledge, seeing how a lot of the job entails educating customers about various wares such as digital cameras, computers and general electronics stuff its not too difficult. The pay rate is quite weird as well, since you are given a base salary then earn commission if you sell warranties, cellphones or services. So on a good day, or through most of Christmas, I can earn roughly $15-20 / hour or up to $30 / hour if I'm really lucky. Plus you have the whole stronger Canadian currency thing which works out to my advantage if I decide to convert it back into New Zealand currency.

I'd really like to get my hands on either a Still Camera or halfway decent Video Camera (like the 6MP Sony consumer camera I'll have to look into) so I can start doing something creative. Its just been work work work at the moment, but with the money its bringing in I can't really complain too much. At least I should be able to save up for something useful.

New Location

Well haven't posted anything for awhile, but fear not I will return back to normal very soon. I am now living in Edmonton, Canada, which is a nice change from Invercargil by a long shot. I also finally have access to a camera again so should be able to post up some more photos when I take them. Edmonton is covered in snow, and I'm sure it will take some time to adjust to their cold, minus twenty degree weather. Its a definate change for me, but all the scenery is so nice here and the town is bustling with opportunities, almost every place here is crying out for workers due to major worker shortages. I'm really hoping to get some filmmaking experience here as well, and will make sure to post about it if I find anything interesting.