Belated Update

I know, I know, I have been slacking on the post over the past few weeks. Here’s a recap:

A few weeks ago, Hillsong threw a youth event called Exo day.  It kind of had a festival like feel, seeing as it was hosted in a massive stretch of field with a plethora of crowd-drawers and games. During the day there were dozens of separate stages set up where bands of all genres were playing back to back until the main event started on the large stage that night. I was working camera 1 assist, so I got the chance to be right in the trench between the crowds being held at bay by a barricade and the crowd with band on stage. At the end of the night, The Almost (a popular Christian band from the States) played as a sort of a finale for Exo Day.  Thinking back, over the past nine months, I have helped shoot on stage with Hillsong United, Jesus Culture, Stan Walker and The Almost. It just really reminds me of how blessed I am to have such an opportunity to work with such influential forces in the music world.

             Shooting was going well, however my timeline closed in on me faster than I could roll the camera. Before I knew it, my lead actor is flying back to Brazil and all the footage I shot with him is now useless. Honestly, I felt tinges of discouragement creep in at first. There were a few moments when I was tempted to not touch the project for a while, or even scrap it and paste together a cop out project just for the sake of getting a grade. However, there are a number of influential people that encouraged me to perceiver and tell the original story. So over the past week or two, I have recasted 2/3 of my cast, and have started reshooting.  I have learned that the shooting part itself is actually extremely easy compared to setting up times to shoot, negotiating those times with actors, and then booking out equipment. Here's a snippet photo (remember,  it's unedited)

            And now for the story everyone has been asking me about…the girlfriend. Well, it all started earlier this year at a party. It was a birthday party for someone I didn’t really know, so I was just meandering from room to room when a little blond girl sitting cross legged on a bar stool asked me about the bone carved tooth hanging around my neck. We started talking…and talking….and talking. Needless to say, after she told me how her dream was to go backpacking in Alaska, I started crushing on her immediately. She wasn’t going to college at the time, so I made sure I remembered her first and last name so I could look her up on Facebook and keep in touch with her. After awhile, she started doing the degree program and I would occasionally run into her and have a quick casual chat here and there.  We did a few small hangouts, then after spending an evening in the city we both realized we liked each other.

Also, I'm 21 today...

           

Yes, I know...

     Yes, I know, it's been a few weeks since my last post. So I'm going to try summarizing all the highlights over the past couple weeks....

     I can't recall if I mentioned the work I have been doing in Hillsong TV, so I'll write about it anyway. Every week, we are required to spend four hours working somewhere in the church (this is called "Fieldwork"). Over the past few weeks I have been cutting and editing sermons for Hillsong TV. Basically,  I go to an editing suite at the the church and am given a raw sermon shot with multiple (six) cameras. My job is to look at all the angles and pick which shot is best to cut to. The tedious part is however, making sure I cut at an appropriate time (when the speaker takes a breath or pauses), making sure there is no empty seats in the shots or people walking around, that the camera is moving, that a shot doesn't run longer than 15 seconds, and that the lighting is adequate . For example, one sermon I was doing, pastor Brian was wearing a black leather jacket and would sometimes become practically invisible on the darker side of the stage, thus making most of the  camera shots useless.

     I  started shooting my short film last weekend. Even though I had written (in my opinion at least) a solid script and had Bearden there to help me set up the lights and cameras, I realized how much actually went into the details. We spent a good ten minutes just trying to figure out how we wanted to shoot someone to go from one room to the next. Another challenge is getting my cast together. With everyone's jobs on the weekends and conflicting class schedules (including my own) during the week, I'm beginning to stress about finding times to shoot. To make matters worse, my lead actor is gong back home in a couple weeks, making the sand in my hour glass drain all the more quicker. BUT on the bright side, I am extremely happy with the footage I gathered last week. Here's a few stills, keep in mind they haven't been edited yet so they are really just scrren shot excerpts from the raw footage....

Nope. Not real moonlight, just smoke and mirrors...and a studio lamp with a stack of blue gels set up outside the window.

The name of my film is "Boxed In"...Hence the Box.

I don't know if anyone can tell or not, but he's actually under water in a tub. I'm going to be cutting from here and into a dream sequence.

    I have been reflecting a good bit on my life lately as I edge closer and closer to the  more than likely conclusion of this chapter of my life. I have thought about all the decisions that have shaped my worldview and who/where I am as person. I remember how my parents thought something was wrong with me as a kid, how it seemed like I had zero motivation. I wasn't physically inclined or coordinated, therefor I had no love for sports and they didn't particularly care for me either. I had no evident talents or skills to my name. It took me forever to learn things in school. It seemed like by the time I got a handle on something, the rest of my peers were miles ahead of me (especially in math). I was almost even sent away to military college, but thankfully my mom and dad decided to keep on letting me study at home and at KONOS (a program that taught lectures and gave exams once a week).

     

     There was not an exact snap, or revelation that led to a positive shift in my abilities, but instead a slow process of building self-discipline over the years. Somewhere along the way I came to terms that the only  people that could help me overcome what ever short comings I had, was myself and God.  Thus began the long climb to where I am today. Not to say I still don't struggle, I still have to try extra hard to learn new things and pay attention, the only difference is now I am familiar with how to deal with it. I feel like God wired me the way I am for a few reasons, but I can identify two in particular. 1.) To continually make me stronger through challenges and trails for His purpose on my life, what ever it might be. I think of it as scar tissue, which actually is twice as strong as regular skin. It's the body's way of repairing it so it won't get wounded next time. 2.)To keep me humble and close to God.