My journey with Film

Hello out there,

Today, I’d like to talk about Film.

I bet you knew that already.

Its in the title.

I’ve been writing short film scripts for around two years. I’ve only written, like, five or six in that time because I’ve been working on my books. Actually, I started learning film a year before I even decided to write a book.

Between 2012-2013 I got ahold of some bitcoin— about half a coins worth— and in 2018 when it spiked up to 3k I decided to buy some film equipment. Kind of regret that I didn’t save it but that’s another blog all in itself. Anyways, I ended up getting my first nice camera, some lighting, a boom mic, and other odds and ends.

I focused on Cinematography, mainly because I admired camera work of the Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul shows. I learned a lot about lighting and where to place your camera etc. It was all so fascinating!

In April of 2018 I ended up joining a group in Fontana California. We struggled to find a project to work on. When we finally decided on one we filmed half of it and then the weather decided to poop on us. Our actor ended up cutting their hair so we called the whole thing off. It was a bust.

Every video out there said to prepare to fail and I told our group that we’re going to mess up.It took everyone a month or two to recover from it.

It’s okay to mess up so long as you learn from the mistakes.

We persisted though. By the end of the year, we had another one planned and we shot it all in two days. It went pretty well, our director wanted to go off script which is okay. However, we had a very limited time frame so we eventually shot it as it was written.

I absolutely loved some of the scenes we crafted in that film. Raj our director ended up editing it and we don’t have a link to share to it but I have a rough cut that I made. I might share it if coaxed by you all.

After this film is when I really jumped into writing full time. From early January 2019 to June 2019 I worked non-stop on my first book. The first draft was completed somewhere in the middle of June and I’ve been editing it ever since. The exact date is probably in my twitter post history.

After I finished my book more people joined our film group and a few left. We had some really dedicated people now and we pushed out another film. 

Mike Keyser was helping organize everything and was essential to the next two short films.

This next one was a comedy about a clown, Pennywise’s cousin Dimewise. We smashed it out in a single day. We called the film “Psycho Therapy.” I was out of practice and there were some focus issues but it came out okay. It’s extremely corny though.

After that, I wrote another script with the help of a friend and we shot it. It was planned as a single 8-hour shoot and we got it done in that timeframe. I did a little extra work like getting certain background sounds that needed to be in it. This one was called “Stalker” I didn’t do the filming for this one. My camera skills still needed freshening up. So we had Eldred Grant on camera while I directed. I had a blast!

Johurdan our stalkee in the above film invited me to work on another short film with another group of people. I was hesitant because they were a whole new set of people. I have anxiety issues when it comes to new people but with Jho there my confidence grew. Jho and I ended up carpooling so I didn’t have to drive as far. If she sees this, thanks girl <3. 

Meeting them was a wonderful experience! I started as a production assistant but as we went along I ended up suggesting changes. Luckily they were a pretty open group. The fact that they liked my suggestions was probably a part of it. As we went along I let them know that I did some filming too and when some of the other camera people couldn’t make it I was there to fill their boots. I ended up filming a good portion of the film. The film was shot at several different locations and I made all of them except for the last day. I was really sick and didn’t want to spread it.

I still haven’t seen the completed film yet but I’m looking forward to seeing it. 

We’re in the early stages of pulling together our group again and making another film. I’m excited enough that I may end up doing some short films starring me. I do need the keep up my camera skills.

I’m so happy I could share this with you!

Have a great rest of your day,
Katherine