Three West » short film

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!

Being The Filmmaker I Want to Be

Tressa Sanders — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:36:11 +0000

This past month has been a real eye opener. Besides reinforcing my realization that I need to start hiring editors for my projects, it has lead me to think a little more carefully about being the filmmaker I want to be instead of going with the “norm” when it may not be the best for me.

The biggest issue I’m having right now is how long it’s taking me to edit projects. Editing all of them simply takes too long. I definitely need to obtain an editor for all of my wedding films. I find myself editing them as if they were a feature film! I have to keep telling myself that its “good enough” for what it’s for. I’m not saying I plan to slack on wedding projects, just that they don’t need composting, camera movement, and special effects like a creative film project would. It took me 6 months to edit my first wedding!

I’m finding that I want to enter into the short film festivals over at dvxuser.com. They are a great way to get used to making films, editing quickly, and having your work viewed. I’d neglected the short film route for some time because I wasn’t very interested in doing fictional films. However, they have been a great way for me to build my editing skills.

The biggest issue I was recently faced with was how slowly I’ve been working on one of my big projects “Our Side of Joy”. I decided this past weekend I’m going to present the film in the format for which it was intended instead of trying to create a shorter version for film festivals. I’d mentioned in previous posts that this film was several films but I filmed it for academic audiences (volumes for higher education courses). If it were intended for general audiences I wouldn’t have picked such a broad topic. I was just about to play myself on this one.

I’ve had this film down to an hour and fifteen minutes for months now and I just couldn’t go back to it. I’m very unhappy with this length. It feels like a long “preview” for what I intended to shoot. I felt as if I should make this film for general audiences and do the whole film festival thing. In doing a little soul searching… I’m just not a 90 minutes or less kinda filmmaker.

I have no problem taking a lot of info and making it into shorter volumes that represent an entire body of knowledge. But I can not just cut and cut and cut until my message is a mess at my feet and I’m putting out into the world some other animal.

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: