I've got a Golden Ticket

Hey guys! Today I finalized booking for my flights! I used a fantastic travel agent based in Denver. She got me a good price and she found a way to put all of my flights (6 in 5 months) onto one ticket. Which makes it much easier for me. The way she explained it was if one of my flights was canceled, the airline would get me another one, but if they were on different tickets, it would be my responsibility to find new flights (should something go wrong). I'll post my full itinerary here pretty soon.

Aside for booking all of my flights (for Asia) I also got a 95% confirmation on a room in NYC! I emailed a guy on craigslist (the fifth I tried), he called and offered me a room in Parkside, Brooklyn for all of January. Him and the other guy living in the apartment are musicians, so we should get along well on the basis of being artists.

(The neighborhood looks really nice)

He seemed really excited about me living with them, and I was excited to find cool people in a nice part of town. I would get my own room and share everything else. The place in a five minute walk (according to google earth) to four main subway lines at one of the biggest stations in the city.

(The red mark is near the apartment)

The final piece of news on an already great day comes from my potential employer in NYC. I emailed him to confirm that I will be in the city and that I would like to work with him. He responded and said he will call me when he does any shooting, which should be at least a few times in the four weeks I'm there. I also emailed a few other production contacts in the city to let them know I will be in town and ready to work. I hope to stay pretty busy.

Until I head to NYC on the 5th (still looking at options for that; bus, plane or thumbing it) I'm relaxing at home, catching up with friends, family and sleep. I can't wait for the adventure to start!

-Glenn

The Plan

Ok, here is the plan for the next eight months. I leave school in two days and fly home to Ohio. I'll spend the holidays with the usual suspects. On January 5th I will take a bus to New York City and work film production with some contacts I made last summer (on the set of "Sleepwalkers") for about a month. On about February 5th I will come home to Ohio to prepare for four months in Seoul, S. Korea studying at Korea University.

I leave for Korea on February 15th, I'll land in Seoul on the next day after a 13 hour flight! I hope to spend a day wondering the city before the program starts on the 17th. I'll meet up with my group "AsiaLearn" and we'll do some fun get-to-know-the-culture stuff for a few days, then I believe classes start on March 1st. After a semester studying and learning at KU, I will travel to Japan and spend 10 days in Tokyo experiencing that culture before I fly back to the US on July 1st.

When I get home I will recover for a few days, then go back to NYC to work again for another month before school starts again in late August.

Sound fun? I sure think so! Check back for more updates, photos and videos in the coming months!

Also, look at my other website, Triangle Pass Productions, based on my professional life. I'll post plenty of NYC updates there as well. Enjoy!

-Glenn

Successful Summer

This summer I went to New York City and worked as an intern at DuArt Film & Video in Midtown Manhattan. As an intern I had the amazing opportunity to not only experience how a major post-production house operates, but I was able to get into it and get my hands dirty with real editing and work with the sound department. I was given the task of creating one minute marketing reels that showed off as much of the wonderful work that has happened at DuArt in recent years as possible. This involved many hours editing with Final Cut Pro, as well as ingesting footage from (most often) digi-beta decks.


In addition to editing reels, at DuArt I worked with producers finding time-code cues to be used in dubbing recording sessions. I was also able to sit in and question directors, actors, producers and mixers as they did cartoon dubbing work.

Outside of this internship I had the amazing opportunity to work as a grip/PA on the set of a pilot episode of a new series called Sleepwalkers. This was a multi-day shoot utilizing the RED camera and was a fully professional operation. I learned and honed so many on-set skills, I can not wait to use them again on more professional sets.

As for the future, I was asked to work with College Humor next summer as an intern on set. I also hope to work on more TV shows and hopefully feature films in NYC.

For now back to school to learn even more!

SleepWalkers Shoot

This weekend I was a PA (production assistant) with the G&E (grip and electric) department for the first days of shooting for "SleepWalkers" a pilot episode for a TV show. This was an incredible learning experience and an awesome way to meet some really cool people to know. I worked closely with a freelance DP and Gaffer, who taught me so much about how a set works and how to be an efficient and effective grip/electrician and PA. I also worked with two amazing guys, our DP and Director. They do those roles professionally with collegehumor.com! I think they liked my work attitude, and I hope to do some more PA work with them this summer, and maybe in the future.

In leu of describing every detail of the many hours of production, I will say a few words, then break down a picture from the weekend.

First off, we started shooting on location in an apartment near Wall Street. Our major challenge (here and in the future) was fitting all of the gear into a Manhattan apartment! Moving everything up from the street and fitting it, along with a 12 person crew into a small place was challenging (and hot and sweaty). We shot at this location all of friday night, and some of the next day. Then we packed it all up, moved 40 blocks north, and did it all again at another apartment.

Now, here is a shot I took on my phone during a shot at the first location (out in the apartments hallway).

The shot taking place here is of two actors coming up in an elevator (camera and sound captured in the elevator) coming out of the elevator and walking down the hallway. In the elevator there was the DP, the AC, the Sound Guy, and the two actors (making out). Everyone then came out of the elevator. The DP moved out and continued his shot of the actors, the sound guy jumped out and kept his boom in position, the AC quickly stayed with the DP and the camera to rack focus as the actors walked away.

In this moment:

Director: watching the monitor on the RED camera to see the shot and performance.

DP (Director of Photography): capturing the shot on the camera.

AC (Assistant Camera Operator): Trying to get his hand on the focus ring on the camera to rack focus ASAP.

Sound Guy: trying to keep his boom at a consistent distance from the actors.

Actors: walking down the hall making out.   

PA (me): standing back waiting for some to need something.

Out of frame people: 

Script Super: writing notes about each shot given by DP, Director, Sound, ect

D.I.T. / 2nd AC: (Digital Imaging Technician is a new job charged with making sound and the massive 4K footage coming out of the camera function properly together, along with handling the footage through post) 2nd AC (same guy) was standing by with the clapper ready for a tail slate.  

Grip/Electric: standing back making sure lights and rigging are functioning properly. OR setting up the lights and rigging for the next shot (2 guys were setting up a dolly elsewhere).

Week two

Week, two of my internship is done. Thats a full 52 hours of work at Duart now! It really doesn't feel that long. I know I am in a good place and I have picked the right career because the days at Duart go by so fast! I work from 9am-5:30pm. I usually arrive a bit early, and leave a little late. But still the day seems to fly by! I start working and before I know it, its lunch time. I end up going to lunch late a lot, like 2pm, just because I'm having fun and don't want to stop.

Recently I have started working on editing together reels of previous work that Duart has done. This involves capturing footage from previous work, editing it together, adding copy (text) describing what work they did, setting up and recording shots around the studio of work actually happening, and putting all this together to make a one minute piece. To do this work I am given use of a Final Cut room. This is a pretty large office room, that has everything you could want to edit. An extremely powerful Mac Pro, with unbelievable RAM and a special drive to increase its processing speed. A (roughly) 40in LCD to screen tapes (played back through a different room), dual large LCD screens connected to the computer (this gives a massive amount of real-estate to view and have all of the windows and what not that I need to use during editing)  another TV monitor that shows the preview that Final Cut produces of the project I am working on. Also, the room comes equipped with a Final Cut specific keyboard, one that has all of the short cuts for editing printed on the keys. It is so useful! I'm learning so many more short cuts by using it.

Using this room may be spoiling me, but I'm loving every second of it! Another great part of doing this project is the people checking my work. Two of the high ranking people at Duart (guys who have been around this stuff for their whole careers) are critiquing my work. I created a first rough rough cut that I thought was pretty good. They came over, gave me their notes, and I basically started over. What I came up with after that is way better! I never would have gotten there without their critical evaluation. By the time I finish editing, this could end up being one of the best edited things I have ever created!

Yesterday I was pulled for this reel project to help put the ceiling up in a new sound proof recording studio that is being built at Duart. Without the ceiling I could see the outer part of the room that really makes it sound proof. There were hanging sheets of a thick, soft board stuff that must deaden any outside sound. The ceiling we put up was made out of a special paneling that does not reflect sound. When this room is done it will add another studio for Duart to record audiobooks in. It will be larger and more comfortable then other recording rooms in the building, so actors and engineers doing audio books will not get claustrophobic during the long hours involved in recording audio books.

In other related news, I am am a PA for a shoot coming up next weekend! I met an actor at Duart who asked if I was interested in being a PA for her shoot. She is creating a pilot for a TV show called "Dreamwalkers" which, I believe, she hopes to sell to one of the big studios! She said I will be a grip, and we will (hopefully) be using the RED camera! I can't wait for this experience and all of the contacts it will bring for later on!

 

First day at DuArt and NYC

I have been in New York City for 3 days now, I arrived here on Monday. Since then I have (most notably) seen Times Square, Central Park,  and a fantastic, unbelievable and amazing Broadway show called La Cage aux Folles and staring Kelsey Grammar!

This morning I started my first day at the post-production house called DuArt in Midtown Manhattan! The first thing that stuck me (floored me!) when I walked in was the Academy Award sitting in a glass case in the lobby!! That was humbling. I started the day with a quick tour of the 11 floor facility. Then started into some typical intern-ee stuff organizing boxes. The project was sorting all of the boxes of all the original Pokemon tapes/clones/dubs/masters and all of the other random tapes they have from doing (and still doing) all the english dubing for Pokemon. After a nice lunch I came back and started working with actual editing using Pro Tools. I was taught (by a great teacher) how to use Pro Tools and I started working by myself in the edit suite. What I was doing was this:

 DuArt is working on english dubing for an italian cartoon show. Each episode is 3 minutes long, and entirely in Italian. I was given the english scripts with precise time-code for when each character starts and stops speaking each line. I watched the second half of the season (about 12 episodes) and made sure that the time-code matched up with the lines, and making sure that mistakes had not been made in the accuracy of the script (like a missed line or incorrect time code). This makes sure that when the actor come in to record the english the producer know what to capture from which actor. Doing that for all of the episodes I was given took about 3 hours. After that I was given the first half of the season (another 12 episodes). These had already had the english put over them, however the theme song for the open and close of the short had yet to be added. My task was to write down the IN and OUT time-code for each song so that an editor can put it in its place. That is where I got at the end of the day, so it's where I will start tomorrow!

(Pictured above is the edit suite I used while working with ProTools. The Suite also included a one person recording room where an actor can sit and we can record them, while they look at a screen with what we see in the edit screen)

All in all I am very pleased with DuArt and what I am doing there! More posts to come!

Oh Shit...

Today the BBC reported that the S. Korean ship that sank in march was most likely (it has been agreed on) sunk by a N. Korean torpedo. The South and the UN are now trying to come up with a reasonable response. They cannot (and will not) let this attack go un-noticed. However, the South will do everything it can to prevent a war because it will not only cripple their economy, but most likely they will suffer major damage to the capitol Seoul, and my future home.

As of now my plans have not changed. I do not intend to change them unless the state department or my study abroad advisors (GlobalLinks) advises me not to go. The best thing, I think, for me to do is carry on as planned. I know that the US government has a plan in place to get US citizens out of S. Korea in the (unlikely) event of a N. Korean attack. I'm not too worried, although a little bit concerned.

For now, click the title of this post (Oh Shit...) to read the BBC article.

Housing Drama

$1200 / 2br - Furnished Two Bedroom For Sublet (Chelsea) That is the listing on Craigslist that I responded to for a nice looking apartment in Manhattan. The owner was a man named Wayne who said he was living in the UK for the next 6 years, and his place was available. At first he sounded very legit and reasonable. The more we talked (over email) the more I became a little worried by him. Finally he sent a sublet agreement form, and it was just typed into the email. Myself and my future flat-mate were very worried about him by this point. We googled the apartment building and called the number that we found. The guy at the office that I talked to knew right away that it was a scam. All I had to say was the number "27K", and he said, "Yeah buddy, its a scam". Apparently five people had already called with the same question. I gave him all the information I had about "Wayne" and his fraudulent Craigslist listing. I was very happy that we had not given "Wayne" any personal information, and we escaped that encounter with nothing more then a little more caution (along with all our money). WHEW!

Almost the beggining

Over the next 7 months I will be traveling to two of the biggest cities in the world; New York City, USA and Seoul, South Korea. In NYC I will be an intern at Duart. Duart does post-production film and video. I will be working with Carmen Borgia, the head of their sound department. I expect I will be assisting him with projects and what not related to sound for video and film. He asked me the other day if I knew how to use Final Cut Pro (I DO!) which is a video editing software. I really hope I get to work with that to some degree. I will know all of this when I start at DuArt on June 1st!

My schedule for these cities is this: I will be in NYC from June 1st until August 11th. I will go home to the midwest for a week, then fly out to Seoul on August 18th. I will be there attending Korea University as an international student for all of the fall semester until the end of December.

More info, pictures, video, audio, tales, lessons and fun times to come!