Hello good and wonderful people! I hope you are all feeling blessed and favored today. If you are reading this it means I have survived one hell of a semester. Whew it’s been a mess, I can’t even begin to describe…but I’m happy to fill you all in on the movie I worked on this semester.
First like all good films, it starts with the script. When I was looking to make my second short last fall, I could not think of a good log line or idea that would work in the 5 minute, non-sync sound (aka no sound recorded on set) format. Luckily my good friend Jameo had a log line that he pitched in class that he wasn’t going to use that kind of intrigued me so I asked him for it and he agreed. Little did I know what I was getting into lol. This was probably my first foray into what Hollywood writers have to do, albeit on a smaller scale. Writing this script was a challenge, I turned in every single draft late cause I just couldn’t get a handle on the material or how the movie should go given that the characters couldn’t talk to each other! Luckily with the help of my classmates and professor Charles Duncan, I was able to mold the story about a professor whose marriage is ruined by his crush on a student into something which you can download at the link below.
An Affair of the Mind Shooting Script
After writing the script it was time to make the movie. My professor met with all of the students in the class and got us started on our productions. We had to do an animatics storyboard to show what the movie would be like. You can see my hilariously bad attempt at it here.
Now let me tell y’all how crazy it was to get this movie made. My movie was the third movie I was on set for in 5 straight weeks in late Feb-early March meaning that I was not only producing and prepping my film but also AD-ing two classmates productions before mine while knowing I’d be AD-ing two more sets and the cinematographer for another film. Chile my life was in utter shambles and with the schedule constraints I had for this picture (shooting 8 scenes the first day, having to rent a place) I thought I would go crazy. Somehow I managed to shoot the movie.
THEN came the wonderful (read taxing) process of editing and mixing the movie. Y’all don’t e’em understand how hard it is for me to edit cause I am not gifted in editing. Yes I can move stuff around and match action, but editing is a constant struggle for me. Probably because I have yet to edit a film to the script, preferring instead to look at the script supervisors notes and find the movie that way. Sound design…sirs and ma’ams….lawd have mercy lmao You all need to praising the sound team on every film you see cause y’all don’t know the half of what it takes. Since we had to build this soundscape from the ground up it was like creating an entirely new film. I survived. Barely.
I say all of this to set the stage for what is my most ambitious film (well until I shoot my 15 sync-sound film in the fall lol) yet. Without further ado, I give you An Affair of the Mind.
An Affair of the Mind from Terence Johnson on Vimeo.