NFFTY nomination

So, one of the movies I have worked on at Station Next (my film school) has been nominated at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth in Seattle.
Awesome!

The movie is "Besøg" (meaning: "The Visit"), a short film we made in the autumn of 2010. The criteria for the film was, that there was not allowed to be any dialog. Not as easy as it may sound!
Watch it here if you want! :'D

Last year our movie "Upside Down" was nominated too, but didn't win.

Sci-fi film, pre-production

So, it's been a while since I've actually written anything about my own movieprojects. So I thought I'd give a little update on what's going on.

Our main production from first year at filmschool, "En Verden Vendt På Hovedet" (english: "Upside Down"), won the Grand Prix award at the Four River Filmfestival in Croatia a month ago. It was a complete surprise to us all, since we all have very mixed feelings about the movie. If you haven't seen the movie, you can see it here, though it's in danish and without subtitles:
http://www.station-next.dk/film.asp?side=2&id=62&film=7254&show=1

We finished our main production from second/last year at filmschool. It's called "FREYA" and we're all extremely proud of it. We had a pretty 'big' budget on this movie (considering what we normally do, anyway) so we had the chance to play around with the technical part. The movie was shot on a DSLR camera, and some on Super 8. We had some super long days of production (36hours in 2 1/2 days - one day with 18 hours), but it was well worth it. We've had so much positive feedback on that movie, and can't wait to see if it'll be nominated at any festivals. If you haven't seen that one either, watch it here, though again it's in danish and without subtitles. But they'll come eventually:

Last but not lease we've begun pre-production for our first film as last-year students. The criteria for this movie were: 

- It has to be a genre film, meaning we had to choose a genre and write the movie so that it would fit the elements of that genre. 

- We wouldn't get any professional help on the actual days of shooting, like we normally do. 

Besides that, our group of about 20 people was split up into two groups, so we're making two movies in all. 

My group has chosen the (pretty tricky) Sci-fi genre. I'm the sound technician on this set. We've basically got the story down, and the style to the movie, but we're having a few problems with the locations, since they are pretty tricky, and we've got a super low budget this time. But no worries, things will work out eventually, just like they always do. 

Shooting will take place in three weeks, and we've got quite a lot of work to do before, but it's always exciting to see how people work under pressure. =D

Anyway, here's the 'short' update on things. I'll go watch 2001: A Space Odyssey now, for some inspiration!

Sharkwater

Sharks are truly one of the most fascinating creatures out there. Since, well, as long as I remember, I have had a huge interest in sharks, and they have always been my favorite animal. I have watched countless amounts of documentaries on sharks and the oceans in general, and I am just about to begin taking my diving certificate (I actually got it for my 15th birthday, but haven't had time to take it yet).

So yesterday I sat down and watched another shark documentary - "Sharkwater". It was quite interesting, since it delt with a side, not many other documentaries have (of the ones I have watched at least). It delt with shark finning, but in a completely different way than I have seen before. The whole movie had a very personal tough to it, since we are actually following the film director Rob Stewart. In stead of it being a bunch of random people showing some pictures and telling a bunch of facts, we were a part of Rob Stewart's story.
But still he managed to not just tell a personal story, but have a good balance, including a lot of facts and some quite nasty pictures.

But back to the shark finning point. I wouldn't say it was an eyeopening experience for me, since I already was quite aware of awfulness about it, but he did sure have some parts to it, I wasn't that aware of.
I did end up with tears in my eyes at one point; some pictures were simply too disturbing.

The only really negative thing I want to say about this movie, is the narration. It was by far the worst narrator I have ever heard, because of his voice. But you'll have to watch it to see why ;-)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0856008/

The newest addition to my room. Still need to name him though! Any ideas? 

One of my goals in life, is to dive along side sharks. I want to see a shark in real life while diving SO much. 

Saving sharks is going to be one of my priorities in life, but at the moment I've just gotta stick to signing "save the sharks" - petitions!

That's why this makes me so happy: http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_19065609

Movies watched: August

Here are the movies I watched in August. Would be cool if you guys wanted to start a discussion with me! :'D

AUGUST 2011

2. Legion

4. Sherlock Holmes

7. Die Hard 1

8. Newsies

11. The Incredibles

12. Unbreakable

13. Mulan

14. The Terminal

14. Mulan 2

15. Sleepers

16. Inception

20. Conan The Barbarian (2011)

21. Road to Perdition

22. What's Eating Gilbert Grape

24. True Grit (2010)

25. Inception

26. The Hangover 2

30. Mysterious Skin

31. The Lookout

(of the movies I haven't seen before:)

TOP 3

1. Inception

2. Road To Perdition

3. Mysterious Skin / What's Eating Gilbert Grape (can't decide)

BOTTOM 3

1. Conan the Barbarian

2. Mulan 2

3. The Hangover 2

Movies watched: July

Here are the movies I have watched in July. Would be cool if someone wanted to start a discussion. :'D


JULY 2011

1. Unknown

2. Takers

2. Rounders

3. Sky High

3. Shelter

4. August Rush

5. Life As A House

6. August Rush

6. Shutter Island

10. Hereafter

11. Tron: Legacy

14. Vejen til Eldorado

14. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part 2

16. The Italian Job

17. Catch Me If You Can

18. Batman Begins

19. The Dark Knight

21. The Mechanic

24. Star Wars IV: A New Hope

25. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

26. Powder

27. The Shining

30. Super 8

(the movies I haven't seen before)

TOP 3: 

1. Shutter Island

2. The Shining

3. August Rush

BOTTOM 3:

1. Sky High

2. Unknown

3. The Mechanic

Media exam

So, friday was my media (film education in high school) exam. At the exam you draw a 5 minut clip from a movie, which you have to analyze. Then you get 45 minutes to prepare and finally you have 45 minutes of actual exam. In the 45 minutes of the actual exam, about 25 minutes is spent on analyzing the clip, and the rest of the time is spent on your own movie, which we've made earlier on (check earlier blogs about the movie "(in)Sane").

So when I got there I drew a short film, which was 4 minutes long. It's called "Eksamen" which means "The Exam" in danish. When my classed worked with short films, I hadn't begone yet (I changed schools half ways through), so I had absolutely nothing on short film analysis. Great.
The short film was pretty strange, and I couldn't find the movies plot. Great. I thought I had an hours preparation in stead of 45 minutes, so I was taken by surprise when my teacher told me time was up. I wasn't finished preparing. Great.

The actual exam went fine I thought, but I knew I hadn't analyzed it enough. Then they started asking me about my own movie. I'll have to say, that I really really don't like my own movie, and I was embarrassed to have that as my movie. So, half on purpose half not on purpose, the way I ended up talking about my movie, had a very negative tone, since I thought they thought it was bad too.

After the exam ended they sent me outside the door, while they talked about my grade.
When I was called in they said: "you'll get a 7 (which I believe is C or something like that), and you probably shouldn't do film analysis as a carrier". Oh great, I could just feel my mood sink.
But then they went on: "but on the other hand, you should totally work with film. We absolutely loved your film. You've got so much talent, and we don't understand how you could make that movie on your own (with help from one of my friends) at this level. If I had made this movie, I would have been so proud. You should give yourself much more credit than you actually do, and remember that for the future. We can truly see you have your own style in film making, and..." bla bla bla. After some time they compared me to Lynch and  Hitchcock and said they could really understand why I was a film student, and that I should keep on making movies. Wow.

I still don't like my movie, haha, but I guess I can look at it a bit more positively now.
So despite the grade being shit, what they said totally saved my day.
I don't care if my film analysis of short films isn't too good, as long as people like my film making I'm happy!

Oh, and if I'de drawn anything Tarantino or Trier I had rocked ;-D

May update

Wow, been quite a while since I wrote a blog. So here's one.

I finished editing my movie. The first time I have ever edited a movie, but I think I managed quite well. Final Cut Pro is not that hard to figure out ;-).
When we (Theresa & I) first sat down to edit the movie, we were completely lost, and after finishing the rough cut (don't know what to call it in english), we were both like "Omfg, what is this shit. What have we done!?", but I ended up sitting for 30 hours straight editing it, and I think it turned out alright. Much better than first expected, but not too good = alright!
But hey, it's my first movie ever alone (one other and one actress), and we've had a lot of trouble with the production.
I'll post it here, or twitter or somewhere, as soon as I've had my exam, unless I fail ;-).

Speaking of exam and school. I had my ast official school day last monday. Because I managed to fuck up my school the last half year, I have to take all exams, instead of just some, as everyone else, but it doesn't really bother me. I've got 10 exams in all, and already finished one of them.
June 22 I'm finished with 'highschool' (it's not highschool, but a danish version called 'Gymnasium') for ever. Can't wait!

I've got a year left of filmschool, so I'll just be working and making movies this next year. Yay, gonna be fun, I hope ;-D
Speaking of filmschool. We're almost finished with our main project, "Freya", and june 15th we're going to be walking the red carpet at the largest cinema in Denmark, "Imperial", for the premiere. Yay, one of the most fun days. Can't wait!

Well, that's enough for right now. I'll post something again soon, when I've got something interesting to write ;-)