Workshops

As anyone who reads this blog will know, I attended the first part of a three part workshop on film last week; it was entirely free, which is always a plus. The workshop was meant to be an acting to camera workshop, which evidently became a whole 'working with a camera, lights, production' workshop. As a result of this change, I am now directing a short film that has no name, no dialogue and only two actors. There are only three of us working on the film, aside from the gentleman running the workshop, and one of us was acting last week. This week, in a matter of hours, both the girls will be on camera, and I'll have to shoot and direct the other footage.

Tomorrow, I get to do something very cool, too! We're talking more along the lines of writing - script writing, that is! A short workshop on writing screenplays, and details of a fun little competition being held in the college to see who can write the best screenplay, which will be turned into a film next semester. I hope to God we actually have actors for it! It should be good fun, anyway.

Besides, it's not like the workshop won't come in handy! I plan on writing a short film for a festival.. actually, I need to:

1. write the screenplay
2. steal some friends for an afternoon
3. shoot the film
4. edit the footage
5. upload it to YouTube

All that, by November 30th. Fun times! So I may not be taking part in NaNoWriMo. I'm going to get as much experience as I can with films so that, maybe, over the summer I can do a few short films and submit them to festivals. It's an interesting turn of events, and one that I didn't really see coming. Screenplays and scripts have fascinated me for a while, now, but actually writing them has been beyond me. Time to change all that, I think, with some very cool short projects. And who knows, I might get lucky and actually win something. (side note: a man can dream, can't he?!)

So, that's it. Two workshops this week, and soon the editing workshop for the film to get it complete. Following that, a short film or two (yeah, two... the competition in college gives us three weeks to write the damn thing!) and the rest of my life.

Amateur productions for the win?