Scheduling

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I was given flowers and wine at work recently for finishing a huge project.

I scheduled the Undergraduate Course Offerings and created the London Undergraduate Course Catalogue for the full 2014-15 Academic Year.

That worked out to be about 80 courses in Fall 2014, 80 courses in Winter 2015, 45 courses in Spring 2015, and course options for Summers one and two 2015.

The Course Catalogue was released to all students. Then we opened Online Registration. This was the first time our students registered for the full academic year. And it went well. I think about 90% of the students have registered for next year.

I also trained the new San Francisco Undergraduate Registrar, who came over to join us for two weeks.

Psychosomatic

I am ill.

I’ve had most of the week off work, and have spent this entire weekend in bed. It’s a virus.

Usually when I’m ill, it’s psychosomatic. It’s my body saying, “you haven’t had a break in weeks; things have slowed down a bit, so now I’m going to make you ill so you rest”. And then I have a day or so off, and am back at it. Actually, I find the best way to get over it is to power through and clear up some of the things that have been stressing me out. Then I can destress and relax and get better.

This time doesn’t feel psychosomatic. However, in an attempt to destress so I can feel better, I’m updating my blog with the things I have been up to. This is killing two birds with one stone. I haven’t updated some people with what I’ve been up to, so now it’s public and out in the great ether.

I’ve been trying to grow as a person recently, and have realised that I have a bad habit. When things get too much and I have too much to handle, I shrink into my shell and disappear. And I won’t come out until I have finished whatever it was I needed to. Now, this means if you’re meant to be communicating with someone, and saying “I suck, I can’t finish this right now cause I have too much more”, you can avoid admitting that you suck and avoid the person/people hating you, and avoid admitting weakness. Until you finish the thing, and then can turn up with it and say “look! It’s done! I don’t suck! Sorry for not communicating, but look at the thing I finished! Please forgive me.”

I suck.

I’ve been massively busy at work for, oh, a year and a half. I had months of ‘too-busy-to-think’, especially whilst teaching. I picked up too many film projects and don’t want to come out of my shell and admit I suck until I’ve finished them.

Do any of you suffer from this affliction as well?

I also worked out that I suffer from another bad habit. I love starting projects! Love it! I’m like a magpie: seeing “ooh shiny!” and reaching forward, grasping, “gimme gimme!”.

Finishing projects is harder. Because if they’re not 100% gold-standard perfect, your name is on them, and having ‘not-awesome’ work out there is, well, not awesome. And sometimes you run out of energy and time and passion for a project. Films take a long time to finish (and sometimes they never are finished), so you need to be passionate and dedicated to the project until the end.

I’m learning to say ‘no’ and not ‘gimme gimme’ to the shiny new projects, until I finish my previous ones.

Right, there we go. Dirty laundry in the open. Growing as a a person. New blog posts on their way, with my updates. And hopefully being communicative and less stressed will help my body to kick this virus thing.

Best,
P

Teaching

In the Winter 2014 term, I taught my first offering of BUS 340 Practical Film Producing at Hult International Business School.

The eleven-week course not only was a learning opportunity for the students, but for me as well. Of any aspect of Film Production, producing is the most relevant to business. We looked at filmmaking in terms of project management; human resource management; team management; sales, selling, distribution, marketing; whilst also covering some film theory. I introduced shot types and mise-en-scène; camera and lighting techniques; sound recording; the basics of post-production; working with actors: all things that filmmakers should know, and effective producers should know the basics of. The largest assessment was a group preproduction assignment, which included a script breakdown, schedule and call sheets, risk assessment, budget, marketing and distribution plan (including logline and synopses), for a short film script. As part of the course, I produced and directed a web series, so the students could get an on-set experience.

Continue reading “Teaching”

KinoLondon #61

Here I am, presenting Facetracker at the KinoLondon #61 event (09 April 2014)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/61926315@N00/14019717488/in/pool-kino-london

And here are some other photos from the night

https://www.flickr.com/photos/61926315@N00/14019738469/in/pool-kino-londonhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/61926315@N00/14019719679/in/pool-kino-london//https://www.flickr.com/photos/61926315@N00/13972413643/in/pool-kino-london/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/61926315@N00/13972371513/in/pool-kino-london/https://www.flickr.com/photos/61926315@N00/13972056523/in/pool-kino-london/

 

Guerilla Filmmakers Masterclass

I spent yesterday at Regent’s College, sitting in a lecture theatre, being inspired about filmmaking by Chris Jones, scribbling pages and pages of notes. It was the Guerilla Filmmakers Masterclass. I tried to tweet tidbits during the presentations, but my phone decided I can’t connect to the internet with it (gee, thanks, phone).

I can thoroughly recommend Chris’ workshops and his blog chrisjonesblog.com. I had previously attended a Producing Masterclass with Chris two years ago, when I had first arrived in London. He is a great speaker and comes from a position of expertise and humility.

One of the best parts of the course today was outlining the five stages of a filmmaking career. At the Producing Masterclass two years ago, the five stages of a Producer’s career were outlined as well. I can safely say that I am a Stage Two Producer. Great tips for this stage and how to advance to the next.

Chris also posited that, within the industry, there is no longer the dichotomy between Amateur and Professional, but there is now a third category: the non-professional expert. These are the filmmakers who have a day job and make films in their spare time. That’s me! It was great to look into that model and affirm that it works – albeit with years of hard work – and to recognise it as a part of the industry.

It has been great networking with fellow filmmakers. I have already made some useful connections with people with whom I would like to collaborate in future. 

I wrote pages and pages of notes. I’m looking forward to the second half of the masterclass today. Maybe I’ll even be able to tweet?

Skip School

Today is the last day of filming “Skip School“, a web series about Alex, who struggles with the time jumps of his new school. I have been producing for the students in my course, so they can experience being on set.

Here is a photo of me directing our Alex, played by Ben Grady. The photo was taken by one of the students (lovely shot composition, innit?).Image

Quick Turnaround Producing

Ladies and Gents,

Yesterday was the screening of the third Action On The Side project. In February 2014 we made two short films: ‘Office Ugetsu’ and ‘Escape’. Both films were screened to a group of 30-35 at Hult House. We also screened the updated cut of ‘WhosApp’, which was made as part of the October 2013 AOTS.

Office Ugetsu is now online for your viewing pleasure. Please check it out.

The other films will be online in due time.

I am learning a lot with the course that I am lecturing at Hult (BUS 340 Practical Film Producing). As part of the course, the students are getting an on-set experience. For this, I am producing a web series. The three episode series is called ‘Skip School‘. It follows Alex, a naive 19-year-old, struggling with the time jumps of his new school. I have a very short turnaround time for this project (the script was only finalized last week), so am currently confirming cast and crew.

The series will be shot on Saturday 01, Sunday 02, and Saturday 08 March in Bloomsbury.

I’m contacting people, and am about to start advertising on all the casting and crewing websites. If you’ve stumbled across this post from one of those, and you have any questions on the project or want to suggest someone for a role, please flick me a message (asap, ideally before the end of Tuesday).

Thanks!

‘Practical Film Producing’

This post was written in January 2014, and stayed in my drafts folder for a long long time. I’m posting it retrospectively.

Tomorrow is the first lecture for my BUS 340 Practical Film Producing course at Hult International Business School.

I have a really amazing bunch of students. I unfortunately missed the first week of class – as I had to be in Dubai for our Global Powwow –  so the first week of the course has been online. Students have introduced themselves online and have completed a little quiz (just a multiple choice asking them why they’re doing the course). I had set three films to watch before we meet tomorrow: ‘Lost In La Mancha’, ‘The Kid Stays In The Picture’, and ‘Side By Side’. They have been commenting on them on a discussion forum, and I think I only scared off a couple of them 😀

And, finally, I asked the students to share two short films that they enjoy, to share what they like about it. Some of these students never watch short films. It’s brilliant – they’re getting an opportunity to watch a load of films. They’re seeing different genres and stories. I’m watching every one – which may have been stupid, because I have hours of shorts to watch. But it’s brilliant, because I have hours of films to watch!! I’m loving it. And also, they’re sharing films from their country – it’s an International school, so the students are from all over. I’ve watched an amazing film from Kenya about Somali pirates, a Greek short about a father and son, and I’m about to watch a Dominican short.

I’m looking forward to the class tomorrow.

You can follow the hashtag #practicalproducing on twitter during the course for tips.

Elle Fatale

https://vimeo.com/83442185

‘Elle Fatale’ was created as part of the inaugural Action On The Side project in July 2013. I produced this. Please to enjoy.

2013 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,600 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 60 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.