December 18th, 2023

The fall semester of my sophomore year is over. Which is really strange, and quite frankly nice. I feel like I learned a ton both in my professional life and personal life.  

One of the main projects that I worked on this semester was a short called “Oh Shit.” I was lucky to work with some of my good friends, Lindsey Hecker and Carson Munn! 

Pictured Above is Lindsey in Director Mode, she was also the main screenwriter for this story.

The Origins of the Story

The idea for the film came from watching music videos with my roommate,  and we came across Katy Perry’s Last Friday Night. I love her story of a wacky party, and thought that would be a fun scene to shoot for my class!

I told Lindsey about my idea, and she was game for it. However, she originally wanted to do a dark comedy. So we compromised, and created this story where two drunk partiers wake up to a dead roommate. 

How does that happen? Well, you will have to check out the film! (link below the post!) 

As for what I learned in the process of creating this film was a lot.  

First of all, I have been on a lot of film sets my freshmen year, so being on the crew was not news to me. But, being one of the chief creatives was. 

I enjoy art and want to learn more about the technical side that helps one create this art. So I was the Director of Photography for this shoot. 

Basically a Director of Photography is the chief lighting designer for films, as well as the person who decides what cameras, lenses, camera formats, types of shots, as well as is the leader of the crew. Sometimes they will also operate the camera, in this case, I did. However on bigger shoots there is usually a crew member as the camera operator instead. 

I really enjoyed the role. It was something that I haven’t done at this level before, so it was definatly a new experience in that aspect. But I enjoy photography, and was super excited to use the soundstage to create something wacky. I love duotone lighting, and can create a party scene with vibrant pink and purple lights on all of the characters in our shot. 

Here are some stills from the Project that I shot.

Pre Production and Making Mistakes!

As for pre – production, I created lighting diagrams with the help with an experienced TA (shoutout Sarah Mehani!) from our class, who was super helpful in polishing my plan. 

Then after weeks of pre – production, our shoot day was apaun us. 

To say the least, our set was quite ambitious with two lighting diagrams, fifteen extras, and two minors, who was my friend from home and her good friend*. 

We also had 6 and a half hours to shoot. Which is not a lot. 

The six hour time limit is what got us. We did not get the proper coverage for out shoot day. As the Director of Photography, I created the shot list, and was quite over ambitious for our time limit. 

Moving forward, when I create a shot list, I will consider getting what we really need and then plan to get extra if we have time. We got enough to create an edit that I am happy with, however, it could have been a lot more better if we planned better with our coverage. 

Final Thoughts

As for my role itself, it was super fun to use the Sony FS5 with the rokinon lenses. Since it was a class, that was the camera and lenses that we had to use. So I didn’t really have much choice with any other camera capturing technology at the moment.  Which is alright since I am still learning, along with the other students in the class. 

Overall, I would describe this experience as incredibly silly and fun, since I got to make a ridiculous short with my friends and classmates. Yet, not everything was perfect and there are MANY things that I wish I had done differently! So I will definitely keep those in mind moving forward! 

I’ll be taking what I learned from this class and only improving my skills and collaborations as I continue to create films and stories!

Plus, apparently my lighting set up was cool enough to go in the RIT Production Webpage? Crazy right? Here it is: https://www.rit.edu/study/film-and-animation-bfa-production-option

Credentials because filmmaking is a team sport!

Thank you to Lindsey and Carson for being the best creatives to work with! 

Thank you to the talented Declan Hughes. Michalea Ireland and Alex Coleman! 

Thank you to Jack and Munjal for being awesome professors

Thanks to my incredibly talented crew! 

Art Team 

– Mabelen Bonifacio (Chief Peggy Prop Master)

– Maria Palmeri (congrats on being a Coca Cola finalist for RIT!!) 

– Deegan Melchiondo

Grip Team (Thanks a ton!! You guys executed my plan so well!!) 

– Evelyn Sutkus

– Jax Self

– Kailee Gentles

Sound Team 

– Kyle Chong 

– Nathan Armstrong

My Assistant Camera Team and Script supervisor

– Andrew Schlegal

– Lucas Sherron

– Joy Anderson! 

Thanks to the extras who absolutely did amazing as partiers, drunks, and of course the iconic blunt girl! I hope it was fun for all of you!!