WARNING! This post contains optimism. If that makes you sick, this post is probably not suitable for you. Please consult your doctor before continuing.
Most people who work in film, or want to work in film have probably have heard the argument about whether or not film school is worth it to the ambitious filmmaker. The list of celebrated directors who went through film school is just as spectacular as the one for those who didn't. One of the bigger arguments against film school is often "Spielberg didn't go". Well, that is true, but Spielberg really REALLY wanted to. Steven Spielberg wanted to go to USC's film school desperately. Unfortunately for the younger Spielberg, USC's admissions officers didn't see his C average GPA as worth much to the university. He still applied THREE separate times...and each time, the person who would eventually be the most well-known man in Hollywood, was rejected. Even though he ended up going to another school, but only a short time, his love and appreciation for USC's film school refused to die. After becoming famous, Spielberg was given an "honorary degree" from USC. The talented director has since given millions of dollars to the university and now even has a building named after him there.
I also have this dream of making it to a film school, with USC being my top choice if I were able to actually get in. George Lucas(Star Wars), Ron Howard(Apollo 13), Freddie Wong(Rocket Jump Studios) and many other famous names are all alumni of their Cinematic School of Arts. All of them are women and men who are far more talented than I am and were probably still far more talented as they were applying to USC. Right now, I'm just making baby steps in producing, I feel like I might be in the adolescence of my directing abilities, but recently I've made some larger strides in my writing. I've written three short screenplays this semester, "Krampus", "The Love is Dead", and "Comedic Relief", which have all been received well by those who have read them. Also, I have this blog now! I force myself to practice my writing on a schedule each week, so that I can release a new blog post each week or hopefully have a new idea for a short/feature in my head. In order to do what I want to do at film school and for the rest of my life, I have to start making strides in other areas like I'm doing in writing. This semester of school, my serious hat has been put on and turned backwards. I'm making sure that my filmmaking abilities improve and that I sure as heck won't be kept out of USC because my GPA isn't what they're looking for. Preparing to do more of the process on my own has been a little nerve-racking. My final video for my digital film class, "The Love is Dead", is going to be exclusively directed and edited by myself so that I can improve in those areas. To be honest, I am scared to death to be doing this video all on my own. I know what to do and I think I'm capable of doing it, but that doesn't make me any less frightened of what is ahead of me. In the end though, I'm improving on my abilities and will work to produce more projects to show off what I'm capable of as I improve. All of this is about me working towards my short term dream of being good enough to be a part of the same family as people like GEORGE LUCAS. Just making it to the USC School of Cinematic Arts...and do that whole "graduating" thing too, being one of those lucky few. That is what I want for my life. That is my dream.
I don't care if you're nine years old or ninety-nine years old, you should follow your dreams. How cheesy is THAT?! Apologies for the mad cheese levels of this post, but this is all honesty. Don't worry about what anybody says. All sorts of people get to make films for a living and even a select few eventually get recognized for doing it. Why not ME? Other people have had the opportunity to be the astronaut, the chef at a five star restaurant, the hit video game designer, the Iron Man triathlete etc. Why not YOU? If somebody tries to crush your dreams, it is most likely that somebody else has crushed theirs. Keep them around when you succeed. You might just be what they needed for them to pursue their own dreams again. What are your dreams? Wanna talk about them? Or maybe there is something I can do to help you? OR even better, for you to help me?! ;) Let me know in the comments, or email me at ptucker2011@gmail.com(alternate: ptucker@cedarville.edu).
Thanks and God Bless!
- Paul Tucker
Friday, November 21, 2014
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Producing the First Post
For those of you who don't know, writer's block, defined by Wikipedia as a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work, is usually something that people who have been writing for years usually have. I, on the other hand, seem to have developed it on this first real post. That's not actually 100% true, but I want to save some of my more serious discussions or posts for a later time. We're not getting too deep into this right off the bat.
Isn't it funny how we can imagine something being so simple and easy for ourselves, only for it to seem impossible to us when we actually take a crack at it? That's what I honestly believed when I first got into making films. I didn't properly respect the process the way I should and it showed in my first ever short. Here at Cedarville, the first class where you actually get to make videos for class is called Video Technical Training(calling it vid tech from here out). In vid tech, we were tasked with making a commercial. The product could be one that already exists, or we could create our own product. Choosing the latter, I was trying my hardest to think of a ridiculous product that I could make an over-the-top commercial for. That product would later be called Thunder Punch, the manliest soft drink around. I was absolutely fueled with excitement. I was ready to make this amazing video that would leave everybody speechless.
There is this terrible habit I've had(sometimes still deal with) where I would wait till the night before or day of to do an assignment for school. This project was another one of those times. The night before the video was due, I finally started filming. It was terrible. I was scatter brained and ill prepared. I brought no lights and no sound equipment with me. All I had were the lights that were in the school building over my actors' heads and the audio that my camera was picking up by itself. If you're not somebody who makes films, using a camera's audio is a terrible decision. It will pick up everything you DON'T want and nothing you actually need. I had no knowledge of all the settings video cameras have to make the image look better. All I knew was how to point and shoot. That is exactly what I did. My shots were decent, but with the bad lighting and audio, it didn't matter. Then editing came along. If you ever talk to me about the filmmaking process, I will gladly tell you how editing is by far my least favorite part. Editing is probably the only part I actually do not like. As if I wanted to make editing even more fun, my dumb butt thought I could totally just get up early the day the video was due and knock it out in no time. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...stupid. No, I got up at six in the morning and edited all the way up until vid tech started at about noon. I barely made it through the door as the class was about to start and thankfully I was able to give the professor my flash drive. I ended up getting a B+ on the project, but I deserved much worse. I wouldn't have been able to do it without my actors who were willing to sacrifice their evenings to help out a big goof like me. Thankfully, I have some wonderful friends here at Cedarville that had my back that night. They saved me from getting a terrible grade on my first video. I definitely owe them all BIG time for that. I've come a long way since that first film and my abilities have improved greatly. My hope is that I only continue to get better in every aspect of the process...yes, even editing.
So...a message. There should be one, right? I guess, if there has to be one, respect work. Any kind of work. Respect the custodians who have to deal with messes that aren't their own, respect the waitress who you think is the worst person in the world because she hasn't brought you the ketchup yet, and of course respect the filmmaker/blogger because this stuff is hard! ;)
I promise to work hard and get better at this. There will probably be some errors in here, but I'm at least trying! I enjoy doing this so far and hope to make this a once a week deal. Thanks for reading!
God Bless. :)
-Paul
Isn't it funny how we can imagine something being so simple and easy for ourselves, only for it to seem impossible to us when we actually take a crack at it? That's what I honestly believed when I first got into making films. I didn't properly respect the process the way I should and it showed in my first ever short. Here at Cedarville, the first class where you actually get to make videos for class is called Video Technical Training(calling it vid tech from here out). In vid tech, we were tasked with making a commercial. The product could be one that already exists, or we could create our own product. Choosing the latter, I was trying my hardest to think of a ridiculous product that I could make an over-the-top commercial for. That product would later be called Thunder Punch, the manliest soft drink around. I was absolutely fueled with excitement. I was ready to make this amazing video that would leave everybody speechless.
There is this terrible habit I've had(sometimes still deal with) where I would wait till the night before or day of to do an assignment for school. This project was another one of those times. The night before the video was due, I finally started filming. It was terrible. I was scatter brained and ill prepared. I brought no lights and no sound equipment with me. All I had were the lights that were in the school building over my actors' heads and the audio that my camera was picking up by itself. If you're not somebody who makes films, using a camera's audio is a terrible decision. It will pick up everything you DON'T want and nothing you actually need. I had no knowledge of all the settings video cameras have to make the image look better. All I knew was how to point and shoot. That is exactly what I did. My shots were decent, but with the bad lighting and audio, it didn't matter. Then editing came along. If you ever talk to me about the filmmaking process, I will gladly tell you how editing is by far my least favorite part. Editing is probably the only part I actually do not like. As if I wanted to make editing even more fun, my dumb butt thought I could totally just get up early the day the video was due and knock it out in no time. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...stupid. No, I got up at six in the morning and edited all the way up until vid tech started at about noon. I barely made it through the door as the class was about to start and thankfully I was able to give the professor my flash drive. I ended up getting a B+ on the project, but I deserved much worse. I wouldn't have been able to do it without my actors who were willing to sacrifice their evenings to help out a big goof like me. Thankfully, I have some wonderful friends here at Cedarville that had my back that night. They saved me from getting a terrible grade on my first video. I definitely owe them all BIG time for that. I've come a long way since that first film and my abilities have improved greatly. My hope is that I only continue to get better in every aspect of the process...yes, even editing.
So...a message. There should be one, right? I guess, if there has to be one, respect work. Any kind of work. Respect the custodians who have to deal with messes that aren't their own, respect the waitress who you think is the worst person in the world because she hasn't brought you the ketchup yet, and of course respect the filmmaker/blogger because this stuff is hard! ;)
I promise to work hard and get better at this. There will probably be some errors in here, but I'm at least trying! I enjoy doing this so far and hope to make this a once a week deal. Thanks for reading!
God Bless. :)
-Paul
Friday, November 14, 2014
Producing a Blog
I've found myself to be intrigued by blogging for a while now. People use it as a medium to express their opinions, teach others how to do something, or maybe just put their words out on the net, hoping that somebody will want to listen. I guess when I decided this morning to create a blog, I had a similar mindset.
Not sure if this will ever reach anybody other than my friends and family, but it's probably best if I include a bit about myself. My name is Paul Tucker. I'm from a town in Ohio which used to be a pretty B.A. place to live, but really crashed and burned(more on that in another post). Being a Christian, my faith is the most important part of my life. God has buried me under a plethora of blessings that I can never thank Him enough for. I actually attend a private Christian school called Cedarville University where I study film. My dream is to be a film producer in Hollywood, which is where my blog name comes from and where most of the titles for my posts will come from. A lot of who I am will be revealed in various blog posts, so I don't want to reveal too much now :)
This blog will hopefully serve a variety of purposes. I'm not a great writer and I'm only slightly witty, so I have no crazy expectations for this. I hope to use it as a way to share my faith with others, document my work as I attempt to reach my dream career, tell meaningful/funny/embarrassing stories about me, and maybe something cooler ;) I will be posting at least once a week. Make sure to check back every Saturday from now on! :)
Not sure if this will ever reach anybody other than my friends and family, but it's probably best if I include a bit about myself. My name is Paul Tucker. I'm from a town in Ohio which used to be a pretty B.A. place to live, but really crashed and burned(more on that in another post). Being a Christian, my faith is the most important part of my life. God has buried me under a plethora of blessings that I can never thank Him enough for. I actually attend a private Christian school called Cedarville University where I study film. My dream is to be a film producer in Hollywood, which is where my blog name comes from and where most of the titles for my posts will come from. A lot of who I am will be revealed in various blog posts, so I don't want to reveal too much now :)
This blog will hopefully serve a variety of purposes. I'm not a great writer and I'm only slightly witty, so I have no crazy expectations for this. I hope to use it as a way to share my faith with others, document my work as I attempt to reach my dream career, tell meaningful/funny/embarrassing stories about me, and maybe something cooler ;) I will be posting at least once a week. Make sure to check back every Saturday from now on! :)
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