Sunday, October 23, 2016

Process Post: 'In a World'





Alright - after my long foray into how I made a movie, it's back to process posts, where I take a detailed look into how I made a specific painting. I'll be picking up from my last process post which was...BACK IN FEBRUARY 2015?!?

Oh boy. I've a lot to catch up on. Luckily, since then, I've been doing a lot of painting and sketches so I'll be covering all that and more in future posts. Today, I'll be focusing on In A World, seen above.


This one is an interesting painting for a number of reasons, both good and bad. First, it was created in a completely unplanned manner. I was on a flight to, or from San Francisco, or Cleveland. I can't really remember. But it was a work trip and I brought a sketchbook to just play around with during the flight. After a few hours and getting motivated by the person next to me who was watching what I was doing, I ended up with this sketch in pencil. Ignore the clouds at the top, it was just me playing around with what I saw.

It was some kind of creature flying in the air because of obvious inspirational reasons (airplane, flying, clouds, etc - aren't I creative?!)

I quickly scanned it and colored it, which brought me here (ignore the floating foliage near the creature). Note that I added a few elements, the clouds, the plants, and the creature's scepter to add more balance to the picture as a whole.


At this point, there was a ton of back and forth. I'll just show you the final version again and talk about what I had to keep shifting back and forth.

First, the outlines.

Outlines is something I've always had a ton of trouble with. Sometimes I want completely black outlines akin to a comic, sometimes I want thick outlines that are darker, more saturated versions of what's being outlines. And most recently, I've played with light outlines that more just accentuate what's already there (which is likely the more correct decision, as that's the point of outlines).

Here, however, I have something else to consider - the original sketch's outlines. These are pencil/pen outlines that add a lot of texture to the drawing. Coupled with some of the other textural elements that the paper brought (see the clouds on the upper left hand corner), I thought keeping those elements intact would add a bit of an interesting flair to the piece.

Then I moved on to the bottom part of the image. I wanted to give the image a larger sense of depth, a sense that we were looking up at the creature. So I played around with the bottom foliage a lot, shifting the positioning and the colors. Ultimately, I took a little technique from some images I had seen: the blur tool.

It's a technique digital artists often employ to represent movement or depth. It's a camera function, not a painting function, bringing elements out of focus in order to further pinpoint focus on non-blurred elements. What I wanted to do was blur the plants and foliage and make the character much more in focus.

Here, I played around with the Gaussian blur tool, shifting how much the plants were blurred. Ultimately, I don't think it worked out for a number of reasons.

1) The blur doesn't add much.

There's no reason to try to add more focus to this character using the blur function. The character is clearly the element a viewer is drawn to because of the negative space around it, so a blur doesn't do much.

2) The blur is distracting.

The blur looks so different from the rest of the picture, which is more painterly and very non-digital because it's a mixed media piece (both pencils/inks and digital coloring).

3) The blur is not very well-done.

The blur would look better if it was done better (duh). The reason I highlight this is that it's done digitally and it's very obviously a digital technique. If I tried to apply a painterly technique and blur it manually (which I don't know if I could do, really), it would blend in better.

While I took this time to semi-crap on this piece, I like the rest of the piece in general and overall, looking at it again, I'm really happy with it. The character feels really original, despite taking from a lot of inspiration, I love the clouds, and the colors are a little bit off from my usual color palette but familiar enough that I was able to paint comfortably with it. The more I look at it, the more I also enjoy the feeling it brings. A strange sense of wonder and discovery. It works for me. Would I try the blur technique again? Yes, but in more subtle and careful ways. I'd like to practice with it a little more before using it in a final image and I'd also work on painting the blur rather than applying a blur. In other images, I've been paying attention to how other artists use and apply blur. Hopefully by next time, it'll work out better.

Thanks for reading.

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

How I Made a Movie: Part 6 of 6 - Fear. It's always Fear


Previously on part 5
I had finished editing the movie...
It was, in every way done...
but I still did nothing with it...
Why?

After I had finished the movie, I let out a tentative breath. It was a relief but there was still a bit of hesitation. For some reason, the rewarding joy that follows the end of every project was missing here. This project took so much more out of me than any painting, piece of writing, or performance. I guess it was partly due to my insecurity because there was so much I had to do on the fly, with little knowledge, and very little preparation.

So maybe it's not that surprising, in hindsight, that I was scared to show it to people. I was scared to release it to the public. Simply put, I was just scared.

Why?

Well, this is a much bigger problem, one exacerbated by my own doing. With any project, there comes a period I like to call the fraud period, or 'impostor syndrome' as it's known to others. It manifests itself most strongly during my illustration work. At some point, when I sit down to continue to paint - I look at what I've done and I think any number of the following things:

'This is awful'
'Why would anyone ask me to make something for them?'
'Wow, I suck'
'There are so many people who are better than me'
'Can I even accept money for this?'
'My client is gonna be so disappointed when I'm finished with this'
'I'll never get another commission'
'I should give up'
'Why do I do this?'

and so on.

If it sounds like I'm being harsh and cruel to myself, I am. And there's nothing good that really comes out of this. It's an awful funk that is an unfortunate part of my process. But, because most of the time, especially recently, my illustration work has a stronger sense of responsibility attached (someone is expecting it, I'm being paid for it, or I signed a contract for it), I have a real motivation and sense of duty to finish it. If it was my own piece, there is a very real chance that I would give up on it. Hell, I have a folder full of half-finished paintings because sometimes, that voice inside myself is too much, I believe what it says, and I stop working.

Most of the time though, I can rationalize the voice shut. This is done with some of the following retorts:

'It's mid-process, it'll look fine in the end'
'It's not supposed to look good right now'
'There is no 'better' when it comes to art/illustration' (this is a half lie I tell myself)
 'They came to you for a reason'
'They might not be able to get someone better'
'This is how you keep learning'

and so on.

So how was this relevant to my lack of action after I finished the movie?

Well...there were a number of issues at hand.

First, I thought the movie wasn't great. My expectations were insanely high. When I thought of the final result for the project, I expected something akin to a contemporary comedy show. You know, the kind with millions of dollars and hundreds of people behind it. Reasonable expectations.

Second, I thought I had failed everyone involved in the project and I was scared that they would see it and hate it. This (and all the reasons) all go back to my unreasonably high expectations.

Third, I had told so many people about the project for such a long time that I was embarrassed to show it to them. This was my fault completely. When I first started the project, I wanted to insert continuous motivation for me to finish the project because I thought there was a real possibility that I wouldn't and I wanted to avoid that. So I told almost everybody about the project so they would ask me about it and because I would hate to then say 'we never finished it.' Social pressure is real and I wanted to use it to my advantage.

Unfortunately, it backfired and came the other way. Instead, I was embarrassed to release it because I had been talking about it for so long.

I didn't really know what to do until I finally said it out loud to someone and they gave me an insanely good piece of advice. One that any creative could use and one that, honestly, I knew and for some reason didn't apply what was my problem at the time. Funny how blind you can be to your own lessons sometimes. Here it is in big big letters.

YOU'RE GONNA SUCK. THAT'S OKAY.

By the way, that post-it is on my wall, where I keep nearly 20 post-its on a variety of different things - mostly on life lessons-ish stuff. I'll likely write about them one day.

This helped and was extremely eye opening. It really put my first issue, that of expectations, to rest. I was comparing myself to work that takes an exponential amount of effort to create. That just doesn't happen given the resources and people involved in my project. So, how could I even expect what's sometimes done with 100x more people and money?

Then I thought about how selfish I was being to everyone who worked just as hard on the project. They would want to see a final product - how could I be the only person saying "no, it didn't meet my expectations, so no one's going to get to see anything they made"

And lastly, regarding the expectations I set for everyone - 1) they probably don't care that much, and 2) the ones that do will support me. Even if they didn't like it, they would either be nice about it or offer constructive criticism.

I was making a huge deal of the project when it didn't need to be.

So I released it. People told me how much they liked it. How much they laughed. How good it was. What my next project was going to be. If anyone thought it was awful, I didn't hear it. If I'm ever to be a success in a very public-facing medium, I should cherish this moment as people you don't know often love to tell you how much they didn't like something.

Regardless, my biggest takeaway was that I need to have a better perspective of what my expectations should be and I should be less harsh to myself. When I started out in illustration I knew I sucked. I knew that it was a process and I would get better with each painting, learning new things along the way. I never expected perfection and I never expected to create illustrations like a seasoned professional would create. Because that's unreasonable. So why did I think, on my first try, knowing nearly as little as possible, that I would create something that could parallel what hundreds of people spend years perfecting?

So with that, the movie was released. You can, again, watch it here. I'm incredibly happy and proud of what we made. I'm very thankful to everyone who contributed in a variety of ways. I'm already thinking of the next one - it'll get easier I hope. At the very least, I won't be re-learning this lesson again.

I hope.

Thanks for reading - I promise the next post will talk about illustration!

Monday, July 25, 2016

How I Made A Movie: Part 5 of ?: Editing - the Hidden Monster


Previously, on part 4

After a long break in shooting due to weather, we finished!
In the interim, I had edited together one scene.
But now it was time to put it all together...

The shooting was done. I had all the footage on my computer. I subscribed to Adobe Creative Cloud to have access to some of the best film editing software out there. I knew it wasn't going to be easy and I would have to learn while I was going along. I read some tutorials, re-read some tutorials, and re-re-read the same tutorials when issues popped up the tutorials told me would pop up. But I was enjoying myself to an extent. Editing has its own system of mini rewards. Once you finish a scene, or finalize a transition, seeing it again in its final version as a standalone piece of work is rewarding.

Unfortunately, that reward only takes you so far. The farther I got into the film, the more times I had to see it from the beginning, and the more I grew tired of seeing the exact same thing. Another problem was that I just wasn't really sure if what I was doing was the right thing. Unlike a painting, I didn't really have a final idea in my mind. I mean, I kind of did, but I couldn't see the way to get there. There was one good sign - I was still laughing.

After a long slog of editing and laughing by myself in an empty room. I had a first cut of the movie finished. I was very proud of that first cut. A little too proud. It got me through a lot whenever I would mention the movie in conversation or one of our cast or crew members asked me how the editing was going.

"I just finished the first cut."

"Well, the first cut is done."

"I have a first cut!"

And so on.

But I was stuck with my first cut, not knowing what the next step was. I quickly realized, as much as I thought I had to do it alone, and as much as I pride myself in doing things alone, I couldn't do this alone. So I asked for help.

I reached out to one of the original directors who didn't have time to direct the film to see the first draft and offer notes. The notes I received were a big learning point from me. I was expecting a big pat on the back "this was your first time? good job!", "there were a few little things here..." and I thought the process from first draft to final would be easy.

That wasn't what happened. My first draft wasn't ripped to shreds but the notes and comments were much more extensive and critical than I expected. And it was the best thing to happen to me.

It felt like I was trying to look at a painting by zooming in close and identifying colors and brush strokes. The notes I received was akin to a hand pulling me back and letting me see the painting at its entirety. And I had the same kind of epiphany. The notes and comments pointed to the storytelling aspect of filmmaking, something I wouldn't have even thought of.

A film is a story. And I kind of forgot that. I thought just the script was the story. But that's not the case. The actors, the cinematography, and the editing, are all part of the storytelling, and those tools are just as essential to the script. The notes and comments were pointing to the fact that my editing was weakening the story in certain points, which brought down the film as a whole.

So that meant I had a lot of work to do between the first draft and the subsequent draft. But it was refreshing to know that I had a lot more freedom and there was a lot I could do to make sure certain story points were hit as high as they needed to. Unfortunately, just knowing that wasn't enough and I still needed help. I hit a wall pretty far into the editing phase and the actual work that editing was made up of was starting to really hit me hard. So I solicited help from my two co-stars.

This was a HUGE help because they brought an entirely new perspective and were also looking at the film from a film perspective, not a script perspective, which is a distinct difference. What I was doing with this editing was 'how can I make the best kind of movie given our script?' when I should have been thinking 'how can I make the best kind of movie given our footage?' What I shot was following the script but the end product doesn't have to match the script word for word. And that was a freedom I wasn't aware I had. With that in mind, we cut a lot of different scenes and trimmed down some of the dialogue, making for a cleaner and more streamlined video. I would be lying if I feel a little weird knowing my script was cut heavily but overall, it was the right move.

So even though it took a long time, I kept at it and ended up with a new cut of the film. But I didn't release it. Why?

That's a big question. So big, it needs another blog post. But on the plus side, it's probably my last one on the project!

Sunday, July 3, 2016

How I Made a Movie: Part 4 of ? - I've never said I'm NOT ambitious



Previously on Part 3...

Shooting went somewhat smoothly for our first day
I had to take charge as a director, but I also had to listen to my crew
Now, I had the confidence or the foolishness to shoot a big, big scene...

If you play Mugging: The Show, at time 3:13, you can see the beginning of the audition scene. In my head, I knew it would be a quick-edited scene and be a little crazy. But I had no idea what the process would actually be like. Production-wise and process-wise, I had to figure it out on the fly.

We put out a casting call for a mugger on Backstage. This served two purposes. We were hoping to find someone for the final scene but also use the audition as an improved scene using most, if not all, of the people who auditioned. The improv would become the scene that made the final cut.

I was basically unsure of every factor involved in this shoot.
- would the actors be okay with us filming?
- would the improv work?
- would the cameras give us the right footage?
- what about sound in a very enclosed area?
- would we able to hide under the cameras?
- what if we didn't find a mugger?

It was nerve-wracking to say the least and I wasn't even thinking of the normal factors involved in shooting like cinematography, lighting, and cast performance. We had no script and 90% of the used footage, with the exception of the beginning and Randall's audition, was improvised.

Surprisingly, the day was my favorite of the entire shoot. We were having a TON of fun. Everyone who came to the audition was willing to participate and each of them brought something different to the scene. With every audition, all I could think of was 'this is gonna look great!' Because every audition was a different improv, we (the cast) was very much getting into the groove of improvising to the point of doing it for standalone reasons.

So, it was onto the next day of shooting which posed its own set of problems. There was a large span of time between shoots and winter came on stroooooong. We were scheduled for one full day of shooting near Riverside Park. Afterwards, we would wait until nightfall and then shoot the mugging scene in the park. But we didn't foresee how bad the winter weather would be. The daytime scene was extremely uncomfortable for everyone involved and no one thought the nighttime shoot was possible as the temperature was expected to drop even more dramatically.

We called it off and decided to wait for another day.

Unfortunately, the temperature did not let up and when I looked at the footage we did have from that day, it was unusable. Everyone was in thick coats, rubbing their hands, shaking. It didn't look good and we essentially wasted an entire day. It took a huge toll on my morale and worse still, we would have to wait until the weather got warmer before we could even think about shooting. That meant waiting until Spring, which would take months.

To not completely drop all my momentum, I decided to edit the audition footage we had recently shot, the majority of which stayed as the final. It was the one thing I could really hold onto while I waited for the warmer weather.

MONTHS LATER...
We finally shot the last two scenes easily with one large exception. I didn't realize how heavily the change in daylight affected footage. Just an hour made a huge difference (and an hour goes by REALLY quick). If I were to do it all over again, I would start shooting once the sun went down, rather when it started going down.

It was here when I learned another thing about filmmaking (a lesson I've learned about writing, drawing, and acting so it was only natural I'd learn it here as well) - lose your ego.

There was a scene I had written that both my actors thought were something else. The beginning of act three originally had a scene where, in part of the pumping up of Daris, he smacked him for motivation. I had written it as one of those standard scenes where a trainer is giving the trainee a good motivational talk and then slaps him for motivation. BUT, both the actors thought it was a spanking scene similar to when athletes smack each other on the butt. That also made sense and I thought it was funnier. I had zero hesitation in realizing that what the actors thought the scene was was a funnier representation of my written scene. So we shot it with that scene in place.

Unfortunately, because I hadn't storyboarded that specific scene, I totally forgot a key aspect, which was having the camera on our principal actor. Despite our best efforts, in the editing room, the entire scene was cut.

After a long night of shooting, WE WERE FINISHED.

It was amazing to know we were done filming but it dawned on me that the next step would be one I would take by myself. I'd have to edit all the footage we shot into a 9-12 minute short. How the hell was I going to do that?

Looks like that's a story for another blog post....


Friday, March 4, 2016

How I Made a Movie: Part 3 of ? - Shooting Time!

Recently on Part 2

After accepting the role of director, I was worried about all the things I had to do and all the things I didn't know how to do.
On the plus side, I got to do some cool storyboards!
But now it was time to work with a camera...

We had our shooting schedule mapped. We essentially had 5 locations but could shoot two locations in one day since two of the three were indoors. Decent lighting conditions was something I never thought about, but I quickly realized why it was so important. Having a consistent light outside made for easier shooting so I was happy to see clear-ish skies on our first day of shooting.

The first day went fairly smoothly. We had two camera operators and, while it was a bit cold, the energy was there and I was pretty damn excited about telling my crew what to do. Not because I have a power obsession (well, not only that), but because I was glad to see that everyone had confidence in me, despite me having zero experience. It was also fun to yell "action!", "cut!", and then check out the footage we had just shot.

We shot the first two scenes of the day in reverse order. The storyboards definitely helped but there was one thing I knew immediately - know when to drop what you planned.

What I storyboarded was an ideal potential (in scribbles). I didn't take into consideration environment, camera placements, and possibility. For example, I wanted the first shot to be flat, looking at the faucet as it was turned on and then as dishes were washed. But our cameras weren't tiny and there was no easy way to obtain that angle. I wish we could've gotten the shot I wanted but I wasn't going to hold up shooting just because of that. Time and results were most important here so I changed the angle and we shot it as is.

We hit one snag later in the day as we were shooting the indoor scene. The actors were feeling like what was written felt a bit off. I felt it too. The dialogue felt expository and the jokes weren't landing. It was...not great. We mutually came to the conclusion of just riffing around the script and improvising lines, ensuring the important plot points were hit. We ran the scene at least 15 times total between the written script and the improvised script. We were tired and I kept looking at the footage and it didn't feel right to me. Then I realized something was off about our improvised lines.

There were no jokes.

The lines were fine, but where before we had some jokes interspersed with exposition, the improvised lines were also expository and it looked more like a drama. I was trying to foresee having this improvised scene with the rest of the short and it would feel off. The scene starts out as a drama then becomes this silly comedy? It didn't feel right.

After a while, I said, "let's try using the script again." I had a ton of hesitation here for a couple of reasons.

I valued the feedback I was being given.
I didn't want to say "I'm the writer/director so we're doing it this way."
But I also knew that it didn't feel right to me and ultimately, that's what my job was.

Luckily, I work with some pretty great people and as soon as I threw the idea out there, everyone was fine with it.

After shooting, we looked at some of the finalized footage and I was a blown away. Not because of the the acting (acting while directing? VERY DIFFICULT) but because the footage was gorgeous. I was very fortunate to work with great camera operators and great equipment. Our footage looked beautiful and that was very encouraging. I've seen shorts and amateur films and, while it may sound silly, how a finished product looks does matter. It's not only about professionalism, it's about understanding that what you're setting out to do has a baseline in terms of what you're going to accept regarding quality. I feel the same way about my art. When I'm settled on a sketch and a style, I'm going to take my time to make sure it looks good and it looks right. Sure, it's different when I'm using a sketchy, quick style (on purpose), but if I'm aiming for a digital painting, I'm going to try my hardest to make sure it looks like a painting and not a pure Photoshop job.

So Day 1 of shooting was in the books and it went relatively smoothly. Our next scheduled shoot was going to be a one-day, one scene shoot - the audition.

That story is best served with another blog post...

Sunday, February 28, 2016

How I Made a Movie (Part 2 of ?): Wait, does directing mean I can make storyboards?

 

Previously on Part 1....
I had written a script for another short film. (watch it here)
Our director dropped out
We had no options
So I had to direct.
Shit.


I had no idea what directing a film meant. But once I committed to it in my head, I wasn't going to back out. Not knowing something had never stopped me before and it wouldn't stop me again. There was a right way to do this. Hopefully. I made a list in my head of the things I needed.

Casting confirmations
Shot List
Locations
Shooting Schedules
Storyboards (!!!)

I was pretty excited about the last one and it was one of the major reasons why I decided to direct the short. After we finalized the script, which was done before I was ever marked as director, I started creating storyboards. This was the fun part.

Basically, I read the script and thought about what I would want the film to look like in my head. It sounds simple enough and it kind of is, but then you realize that movies and shorts have a lot of different frames per script page. Our script was 13 pages and I had about 40 storyboards total, which was not a number I thought I would end up with.

Things I had to keep in mind while making the storyboard was practicality. Nick had a friend who was a camera operator who committed to helping us and he also had a friend who might have been able to have helped with his camera. I also had to keep in mind that this was a comedic script and timing was very important. While it make for more cuts between scenes and lines than I would've liked to have drawn, it was important to make sure I had that in mind while shooting the film.

Quick aside: This made me watch 30 Rock and the show Wilfred semi-nonstop as an excuse to pay attention to how the comedies were directed. Did I learn anything from doing that? Maybe. Did I laugh a whole bunch? Hell yes.

I broke down the script into three acts and created the storyboards. However there was a slight hangup. Here is one of my attempts.


Can you tell what's going on?

Yeah, I could barely tell either.

While that's not an issue - I did a little bit of research on storyboarding and the consensus was 'everyone does it differently. Some are legible, some are beautiful, and some are literally scribbles only the director a can decipher', I realized two things.

1) This is way too small. Even for me.
2) If I were to try to explain my thinking (difficult given my lack of complete knowledge) to my camera operator(s), having a near-illegible storyboard wouldn't help anyone.
Also -
OH WAIT!

Did I mention I took a storyboarding class in college? I didn't? Oh. Well. I don't know if I had some knowledge applied to what I eventually did, but I'm sure whether it was conscious or not, it helped.
Anyway. The little research I did helped in making some technical markings on my storyboard frames to denote camera movement. Here is where I ended up.





 

 



You can see these are not only larger, but also cleaner in terms of being darker, so they were easy to see and I started to mark movement and other specifics with my red pen, which made it much easier to follow.

Having a storyboard was hugely helpful. Seeing the layout of the movie all at once allowed me to understand what felt repetitive, how I could vary frames, and how the camera should be placed. By this point, we had our cast, we had some shooting days, and we had people involved. Whether I was ready (mentally or otherwise) or not, this thing had to happen. The storyboards gave me some relief but I knew that there was SO much I didn't know.

Day 1 of shooting began....
(Part 3 coming soon)

Thursday, February 11, 2016

How I Made a Movie (Part 1 of ?): It Started With A Script


(fun fact - I made the above image on a Surface Pro Tablet! Blog post on that coming shortly....)
  On February 5th, 2016 I released this short film.



Some time ago in March 3rd 2013, I wrote the script for Mugging with the expectation of getting it produced and created.

What the hell took so long?

Well, it turns out making a movie is quite the undertaking, whether or not the movie is short, long, serious, or silly. There is so much I learned - about the process, about filmmaking, about directing, and about myself. Here's where it all started.

In the beginning...

Some time ago, my good friend Nick (long-haired Barry in Mugging) asked if I wanted to make a short together. To me, the answer was a no-brainer ("yes" of course) and we collaborated on a script on the kinds of people who try to 'sell' you music on the street. It was named 'Artists' and you can see it here.

https://vimeo.com/81345185

The making of this film was much easier compared to Mugging. The script was smaller, which (you'll see later) makes quite a bit of difference. The cast was about 1/5th as large and the entire shoot took one day. Mugging was a more ambitious undertaking to say the leas.

The initial process and scoping of Mugging wasn't much different from our first film. I wrote a few drafts, going through about 5 different variations after going over the script with Nick and our initial director. After the last draft, we were ready to shoot. We had our director lined up, Nick and I scoped out locations, and we had actors, the majority of which were our friends (with the exception of a later scene).

An Unexpected Turn of Events

As we were trying to schedule the first couple of shoots, knowing the entire shoot would take more than one day due to needing multiple locations and many more people, our director dropped out. He disappeared and we never heard from him again. I'm still not sure what exactly happened (he is alive, so that's good) but we were without a director and thus, without a way to make the film.

This resulted in a HUGE delay in our film development. Nick and I thought about various different options. Having him direct, having myself direct, look for other friends who would be interested and have equipment, check Craigslist, hire someone. It was a pretty big blow to our momentum and we were both disappointed. We would get together every now and then, have a few drinks, and brainstorm ideas but we never really found a solution we liked.

We Saw The Light

There was one other idea we thought was unlikely, but we didn't have much of an option. We reached out to another friend of ours; a real director with a feature film under his belt. We knew his expertise would take our film to a different level given his experience. We had him give us notes on the script and he said he would look and see if had time to direct. Our morale was growing, this would've been a better alternative than we initially planned.

Unfortunately, timing grew to be a problem and our friend wasn't able to join the project. We were back to step one and more time was passing before we moved any further with our film.

I then realized what was the only option left. 

I had to direct the short. 

Nick had mentioned this as an option various times and I, honestly, dismissed it because I was scared and because I thought it would ruin the project. But between the options of 'don't do the project' and 'have me direct the short', I couldn't hold off from saying no any longer.

So I said I would direct as long as we had someone to help us with the camera, given I had absolutely zero experience directing and even less experience with camera equipment (yes that's possible).

We were back on schedule, but man was I scared.....

(part 2 published here! I promise something art related will happen.)