Three West » Production Notes

New Google Wave Account

Tressa Sanders — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:21:46 +0000

I’m thrilled to announce a wonderful friend of mine sent me an invitation for Google Wave. So far it’s pretty simple. I like that. Having tools to accomplish what you need is best when they are simple. I’m hoping to be able to pull together and manage a few film projects with this tool. It’s great to have everything in one place. With Google Wave I can manage a film project and include forms, schedules, Celtx files, pictures, video, etc all in one wave and have control over who sees it and who is in the wave. I liked this feature of Celtx too … when it was free! I’ll be honest, I’m one of those people who would rather put up with advertisements than pay. *Smile* I look forward to using Google Wave and I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

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Life Happenings, Goals and Plans

Tressa Sanders — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 19:32:24 +0000

I apologize for not having posted in a while. I’m moving to another state, selling my house, finishing up wedding videos from 2009, working on a new video series, reviving and re-planning a puzzle hunt road rally game, upgrading scripts on all of my websites (and there are many), planning to film a wedding in Scotland later this year, and some how in the middle of all this, I still work a regular job. *Smile*

But I do have goals for this blog and of course it’s to keep on blogging but I’d like to at least make one blog post a week. I don’t foresee having time to post any more than that when I’m in full swing of meeting my goals for this year and beyond. I do hope what I post is useful to people and that you will come visit the site at least every now and then to see what I’ve posted. I just can’t be an every day poster when I’m out there living life. *Smile*

This year I’m concentrating on some key things:

1. I have to stop trying to do everything alone. Period. It’s taxing and it’s stupid. So I’m going to look for good editors for my documentaries and weddings. And I’m going to find an assistant for handling my wedding leads and clients and possibly hire other camera persons to work some of my weddings as well.

2. I have to seriously cut down on the amount of things I’m doing. I’m quite and impulsive Aries and while that’s all fun and I like it most of the time, I can see where it will hurt me if I don’t have just a little more control over jumping on every idea that comes into mind. So most of these 20+ websites I have must go. :) I’ll be focusing on my film projects and ongoing publishing projects. I think that would be a life well spent. I don’t need to overdo it.

3. Be debt free forever! This is something I’ve been working on for a long time and I’m very very very close. When I bought my house in 2004, I had to pay off all debt except for my student loans before I could get approved for a loan. That was awesome! So since then, the only debt I’ve had was my student loans and my house. Now I’m selling my house to move to another state and I don’t plan to buy another one unless I can buy it outright. So by June the only debt I’ll have will be student loans and then I can work harder to get rid of those with the goal being to be debt free within 2 years. Since the introduction of visa/mastercard debit cards from banks I have seen no reason to ever get a credit card. But I know there is more to it than that. What really makes that work for me is that I don’t buy what I have no money for. Even more importantly, I don’t buy what I don’t need and what can not make me money.

4. Follow the path I think I should be on. Period. I’ve been wasting a lot of time over the past 9 years. No more. I look forward to using technology in ways that are non-evasive to the planet I love and live on (i.e. using solar energy as much as possible, looking into getting an electric car, etc.) The best part about that is I’m technically inclined and can and look forward to doing the work myself. I’m also looking forward to getting more control over my diet, controlling my own food supply, learning new languages, traveling more, meeting new people. All of these things are top priority to me.

5. Passing on anything I’ve learned to anyone who needs or can use it. So whatever I learn I will post here. It’s not about me. I’ve learned so much online from people just sharing and I have to be a part of that too. One of the best sites on the internet is instructables.com

Well… I was just going to write a short blurb and here I am rambling on about life. Well, it is what it is. Cheers!

So Much To Do – Moving & Refining Life Goals It’s been a little longer than I would have...

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New Developments on The Creative Front

Tressa Sanders — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:57:15 +0000

In light of my ramble about being the filmmaker I want to be, I have been taking it upon myself to be a more active filmmaker. At 1am the night before Thanks Giving, I made a crazy impulsive decision to drive to Plymouth, MA for the National Day Of Mourning gathering near Plymouth Rock. It was a bit of a “Eureka!” moment for me. I’m free! I can go anywhere I want and make films. I’m not trapped in my own city, state, etc.

It’s not that I didn’t know that before but every time I’d thought of traveling to make a film it’s always been this big ordeal; months of planning, etc. This was different. I asked myself, “Why not?”. I mean I had four days off, Massachusetts wasn’t that far away, I could come back home the same day and not have to pay for a hotel if I wanted, etc. So I packed up my grab-n-go filmmaking bag (just the basics) and I got up at 6am and made the 4 hour drive to Plymouth.

I love to drive long distances. It gives me nothing but “me” time to think about life and what I’m doing. So this drive game me time to think about what I need to do with my film and how much filmmaking I need to do (i.e. find a balance between filmmaking, music, writing and my personal life). Making the trip also helped me take part in something where all the variables were not known. I’d never been to Plymouth and I didn’t really know what to expect from the gathering. It turned out to be a very energy-less event, however I’m glad to have done it. I did do some filming but I didn’t stay for the entire event. There were a lot of other filmmakers there and a few folks from the press. There was also this sort of weird vibe where on one end you had this national day of mourning event and just a little ways down, out door church with a preacher talking about heathens, savages, and there being only one valid god. I got a little of both on camera. I may do something with it, I may not.

Yesterday, I filmed a friends band perform live, however the footage will be used in a new short film I’m working on for dvxuser.com’s BetrayalFest. It was also very freeing to just grab my tripod and camera and go film my friend’s band at a tattoo convention. I was also lucky in that there was no on near the stage when they were performing so I was able to put my camera anywhere I wanted. You usually don’t have those kind of circumstances at a concert!

I also haven’t announced I’m moving back to Florida within the next 6 months. I feel it’s the only way I can do more films and music. I have such a tough time finding talent where I live now, I’d all but given up on trying to do films here. I look forward to getting out of here and making more films.

Cheers!

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So Much To Do – Moving & Refining Life Goals

Tressa Sanders — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:57:57 +0000

It’s been a little longer than I would have liked since my last blog post but I still really enjoy having this outlet to share my thoughts and creative experiences. However, sometimes there is just too much going on in life to sit down and take time to write. But the more wonderful and supportive responses I get from readers of my blog, the more I know I’m on the right track and I need to return to it.

The last time I posted something to this blog, I was heading back to Tampa to shoot more of “Our Side of Joy”. I’m very glad I did because it wasn’t until I went to shoot some more of the twins that I was able to really capture what I wanted to capture about their relationship. I will write a separate post about this second shoot because it made such a huge difference for my film.

Although I’d returned to my hometown of Tampa, Florida almost every year since I moved away, I never truly enjoyed being there. But these past 3-4 times I’ve been back have really been quite amazing. I still have a somewhat love/hate relationship with Tampa but what I do know is that I have a wonderful nephew there who I wish I could see more of and all of my real friends are there. Don’t get my wrong I’ve made good friends everywhere I’ve moved, however they have not been lasting friends. At first I thought it was because it appeared we tend to keep friends we knew while we were children longer than ones made as adults. But I think what is more accurate is you will keep friends who strive for and enjoy friendships that are more than superficial and/or surface level friendships and unfortunately there are many people who only offer surface level friendships and this behavior can also be a part of the entire culture of a place (as I am witnessing here in upstate, NY). So I have decided to move back to Tampa as soon as possible for a maximum of 2 years.

Besides being closer to my nephew and wonderful friends, I have also changed a great deal since I’ve lived in Tampa and even since many of my visits thereafter. So what I’ve been finding is my own desire to “live” in Tampa because I hadn’t “Lived” when I was there. Especially compared to where I am, at this point in my life Tampa has a lot to offer me. From awesome food (OMG I never thought about this until I moved here. The food here is awful.) to many many creative outlets I can enjoy. Tampa does have an active film community which is a huge reason why I’d like to move back. I also feel like I can make many new friends in addition to the ones I already have. I can also accomplish some of my ideas for things like fundraising puzzle hunt races, murder mystery dinners, and my plans to start my own video series.

Over the years since I’ve moved away, I’ve also gotten used to traveling and driving long distances and just exploring areas further away from where I lived. I never did this in Tampa. So when I move back I plan to drive anywhere I want to go all over Florida and beyond as well. I plan to “LIVE”. I’m also planning to start traveling outside of the country more as well. For a while there, I was traveling to other countries every year and then the recession put an end to all of that. Now i’m back to a point where I want and can travel more and I’m really hoping to do that when I move back and after two years I will feel comfortable enough to make the big move out of the country. But also let me say this, being where I am now has been a serious learning experience. One, I’ll never waste my time in a place that doesn’t support who I am ever again. This has been almost 9 years of my life I can never get back. Two, I’m going to do all that I can to live life to the fullest anywhere I move and if in doing so, I am unable to create the social and personal connections that every human being needs, then I need to move. Being here has certainly taught me that having a good job is just not enough to make a person happy (at least not me).

I have so much to talk about, I’m going to have to break right here and create new posts for the other things I have going on. Just to share a little bit, I’ve started doing wedding videos to help fund some of my film projects and I’ve been thinking of new, fun ways to help fund my films. Also I’m really pushing towards finding a few editors to work with because editing is truly ruining my desire to make films and to enjoy the films I’m making. My publishing and writing has been suffering a little bit as well because of where I am right now but I have plans to get that back on track as well. So I’ll blog a little more about these things later.

Cheers!

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Tampa Bound – More Shooting for Our Side of Joy

Tressa Sanders — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:40:01 +0000

Well, I had to make a very difficult decision to shoot more footage for my documentary “Our Side of Joy”. After having returned from an excellent workshop on documentary story structure given by Fernanda Rossi, I knew I was going to have to do more shooting.

The best thing is that the workshop was so excellent I was able to get my 2 hours and 30 minutes documentary down to one hour and 22 minutes easy. Having this new understanding of story structure, I could clearly see where my story was going or not going and easily remove elements that did not enhance or move the story.

I’m very appreciative that Marlene and Michelle, who have been so patient waiting for me to finish the film, were more than willing to have me return to Tampa to do more shooting. In the end, I think it’s also for the best because I definitely feel closer to them now than I did before the film and I feel this will make the new footage come across as more personal.

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Two Hours or Less – Almost There

Tressa Sanders — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:00:07 +0000

I’m just about finished getting Our Side Of Joy down to two hours or less. It’s still a very tough process. It feels as if this film is really two complete films in one and most likely that’s pretty much what it is. It has caused me to think about my documentary career. Before I think I just looked at making documentaries from the perspective of choosing a topic and trying to cover as many aspects of the topic as possible. In the end, I think this is fine for multi-volume and academic releases. But I need to be extremely careful in the future when I shoot films for the film festival cuircut. I never have it in my head that my films will be available for theratrical release. I’d be lying if I said I cared about having my films in theaters. The reality is… I don’t. I do like the idea of having my films show at film festivals, on TV and availale on DVD for retail sales. With that in mind, I must decide on topics and how they will be filmed based on where and how I plan to release them. I should have shot Our Side of Joy differently for festival and TV release. DVD releases are awesome because you don’t have to compromise on content. I did initially feel I was going to film Our Side of Joy for the festival cuircut but I didn’t think enough about content in terms of the extent to which I would cover topics and how they releate to each other. In order words, my initial goals for this film in terms of topic coverage was just way too broad. Now I have goo-gobs of very useful footage making it a nightmare to carve down to less than 2 hours for film festivals and TV broadcasting.

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Moving Forward – Staying on Track

Tressa Sanders — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 00:04:00 +0000

I’m working on one of my docs and I’m glad that I’ve been experimenting with other films in between because I learned about a simple feature Adobe Premier offers (Multiple sequences in a project. A basic feature, I know.) that has helped me tremendously with organizing the footage for this doc and helping me know where my concepts are and how much footage I have for each key concept.

So I’m working through all of the footage and I think I should be done with categorizing this week. I can then work on importing and categorizing the B-roll and hopefully work on my story flow by the end of January. I’m hoping to have a final version of this film done by July.

I’ve been watching more documentaries and it’s still tough to get a feel for how I want to present this story since all the docs I’ve seen are hours of bad road (i.e. negative). But it did make me feel like a positive documentary is even more important right now. Its not a good thing to live in a society where art takes you to the abyss and never brings you back.

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New Films

Tressa Sanders — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:44:24 +0000

Well I’m doing my Aries thing as usual. I didn’t shoot “Old Wounds”, instead I shot a video on how to make fake intestines for HowCast.com (so not worth it), and I shot a short film called “Anything”. This was originally supposed to just be a one weekend shoot but I think I’d like to extend it. There were some scene we didn’t get and I’d like to play a little more with the story. I also have a new idea for my next short film. I’m also considering entering the LossFest over at DVXuser.com.

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Back to working on documentary, Our Side of Joy

Tressa Sanders — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 20:04:21 +0000

Well I’m back to working on “Our Side of Joy”. I’ve been trying to figure out why I don’t just work on these two docs I have sitting here already filmed. I think I just don’t like editing. *smile* I can do it, yes. But I don’t like it. I think on future projects, if I can afford to, I’ll most likely hire an editor. I’m also a little concerned that I didn’t get enough B-roll to avoid making the bulk of this film, googobs of “talking heads”. I do have quite a bit of b-roll footage but is it “relevant” b-roll? We shall see when I start to put this thing together.

Since Our Side of Joy turned out to offer much more story than I anticipated, I’m having to go through the 6 hours of interviews and not only do some cutting but also write down every concept covered so I can see where my story needs to go, what needs to be left out, and what relationship the concepts have to each other to tell a coherent story. There is a lot of work to be done here.

I also spoke with a professional documentary story consultant about this film and while it was very interesting, not entirely what I was looking for. I’m always amazed at what people can get paid for. Anyway, I’m back to being on my own with this but would like to huddle up with a few people who can give honest feedback on the way this project is going. On one hand it’s cool working alone because you can do whatever you want without having to wait on anyone but your subjects, but on the other hand, not cool because you do need the feedback of other people and help as well so you don’t feel so burnt out before the film is even done.

Well.. back to work. :)

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New Short Flim

Tressa Sanders — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:37:10 +0000

I’m taking a break from working on my two documentaries to make a new short film. I was going to film a short called Old Wounds but I’ve had to re-evaluate the project. I spent all last night going over the script and determining what would be needed to film the movie. Ultimately now isn’t the right time. We have Winter weather right now and this movie needs to be filmed when it’s Spring or Fall. Sometimes you can work around things like that but due to the subject matter, shooting it in the Winter would make the storyline less believable. So, Old Wounds will have to wait again. Now, I’m looking for a new script but I think I may end up writing it myself. I still would like to make a short with little or no dialogue. I look forward to spending some time creating the atmosphere and mood for this film without having to worry about dialogue delivery. I’ll be making this film under my film and production companies, Still Guerrilla Films and High Contrast Media. I love doing documentaries but honestly I would much rather do one every couple of years and balance it by filming one or two fictional films in between. The first fiction film I did was called Sociopathica. I filmed it when I got my new DVX100B and I wanted to learn how to use the camera. I can not tell you how valuable it was for me to have done that. The film is definitely your typical “B” movie but it was a lot of fun to do and I learned so much from the experience. I learned how to create a workable shooting schedule, to have a much better understanding about lighting, how to film shots based on an editing plan, how to create cool special effects, and best of all, how to really use Adobe After Effects and become a much better editor. I was amazed at how much better my editing had become when I started creating the trailers for my two new docs. Had I not worked on Sociopathica first, I would have spent way too much time learning all of the things I learned from making that film instead of being able to push my new docs onto a more professional creative path.

So, now I’m committed to creating quality films with Still Guerrilla Films and High Contrast Media just as I have with Ijaba Films.

Still from Sociopathica:

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