Script Writing Is Not For This One Here…

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When I was in college I had to take a script writing class. I had one of the best scores during the semester. I admit though that sometimes I did the assignments in class, moments before submission. I will say that to this day, it has been one of the most challenging classes I have ever had to take in my life. We covered everything from radio commercials, to print ads, to television commercials, to knowing when to use a theater commercial, to story lining a commercial for submission, and story boarding a commercial. That was one half of the semester, when midterms came; we went full on with screenwriting. Our professor went on and on about first, second, and third acts. “Make sure your characters have the right motivations for the decisions they make in the script”, she would say. I think it’s safe to say that she is one of my favorite professors, to this day. She lived her teachings, sadly she now works for the governor of my country, but that’s not the point… She was an exquisite teacher, there ought to be more teachers like her. So midterms came and went, and screenwriting was the order of the day in our classroom. We saw so many films, and we had to identify when the acts began and ended. One that I loved was Y tu mama tambien directed by Pedro Almodovar, she told us to watch it over the weekend and come back with the acts, the climax, the plot points, the plot twists, everything. Well, naturally I was too embarrassed to watch that film by myself back then, if you don’t know this by now, Spaniard film-making is very risque, it’s incredibly real, but, risque, and I was not going to watch that with my parents around. So, I arranged a group of classmates and we got together and saw the movie. Safe to say that the movie is amazing, and that once we saw it, it was very clear why she chose that film to teach us with. The script is written to perfection. And the only I could’ve seen that was through her teaching, but enough of that. Script writing is a process. A long, and tedious process at that, if you’re not really the type of person who likes to analyze and over analyze everything a character does. Writing is a process. Writing takes a certain level of humility, it takes knowing that a certain event is going to happen in your story, and it’s not necessarily going to be your favorite thing in the world. One thing that I can say is this, you don’t have to be born with the “knack” for writing; you can learn to be a great writer. It’s something that many people struggle with, because writing is one of the most raw and honest and fulfilling activities there is. You just have to be as raw and honest as the art is. You have to do the work.

First Time as First AD

As you guys know, I'm a film buff, I've worked in different shorts, music videos, and TV shows, but as a mere production assistant. This time around it's a bit different; I have been offered the First Assistant Director position in a short film, set to shoot in two weeks. I've been dealing with casting actors, insurance papers, hiring crewmembers, making shooting schedules and call sheets, etcetera. I'm excited to have this job, but with school on the one side, the family on the other, and then head on is this monster of an experience. It's truly a ride. Now, don't get me wrong, I love it, but it can be too much if you're not prepared and organized. There's a reason why it takes a village to make a film and a team to make that shooting schedule and call sheet. I thought about telling you guys about this because, other than my boss, there’s really no one else I could talk to about this. One thing that film students or film people go through is that they are nearly all the time misunderstood, not just by society, but especially more by their family. My family has absolutely no idea what I do for a living. Sometimes I feel like an alien when it comes to explain a process in editing or how to shoot a scene that could be difficult. This is not being written for pity understanding, I’m putting this out there for people who don’t know what we do, what we go through. That what we do for a living, we do it because we love it. That sometimes it’s a hassle working in the business, but that we do it because we love it. And it goes not just for the film students, it goes for the music students, it goes for the writers of the world, it goes for the gamers of the world. A First Assistant Director’s job is to make sure that the entire crew (Director, DoP, Prop Master, PAs, Editor, etcetera) has what they need in time for shooting. Shooting begins soon, let us hope that everything goes as planned, or that I at least planned things right so that it goes as planned. I’ll keep you posted guys. Thanks for reading my small rant.