Hi, This is Mark, during the holiday, I went to New York Film Academy LA campus to attend a 3 week film making program.(I will call it as NYFA in rest of the article)
This is my first time to go to the United States. I feel a little nervous when I am alone without my parents. As for why we chose Los Angeles Campus, I simply feel that Los Angeles has the advanced technology and resources in film industry. Back to the topic, the three-week course, I have learned a lot of new knowledge. When I first entered NYFA’s campus, I felt different. It was located in a building with five floors. Our film production group was mainly on the 1st and 5th floors. Most of the first week was spent in teaching the use of cameras, the meaning of shots arrangement, how to make actors understand the story more thoroughly and how to make the characters in the story more specific. Starting at 9 a.m. and ending at 5 p.m.It is quite a busy day. Most of the teachers have worked in the film industry for a long time and come to teach students in their spare time. They also have their own personal experience. I learned some interesting fact and rules in film industry.
There are fewer Chinese in this course, most of them come from western countries, so all the communication is done in English. I think my English level is slightly higher than the average, but in Native English speaking countries, sometimes I can not understand what they said, including fast speaking (several students and teachers speak faster than rap:(((() and some local memes. Besides those,I am happy to talk to them. Many foreigners are interested in China, including language, food and culture. Every time I told them the fact about China, their reaction is very funny.
As a student of the three-week course, I need to complete two short films. The first one needs to be less than 2 minutes and the second one needs to be less than 5 minutes. Thinking about the story is actually painful, because there is only few days before the set, but my mind is still empty (but I do not know why, every time before I went to bed, I can think many ideas). Then, the first film script was born, about two people in order to fight for a bottle of water and launched a psychological conflict. On the shooting day, we arrived at the Hollywood backlot, the streets of Back to the Future, and a typical Western town. When I entered the backlot, these buildings seem familiar, and I was very excited to think that I was going to shoot here too. The shooting was divided into morning and afternoon, and my group has four people, two Americans and one Mexican and me. In the scene, I learned a lot about the rules of the film set, and the shooting process was relatively smooth (except for the 10 minutes overheating of the camera in the middle). After the first film was finished, I went to NYFA’s editing room. I surprised. All the computers were top-tier in the industry (CPU is the latest I9-9900, several times more efficient than my own CPU). This time I really appreciated the power of technology.Editing in NYFA, there was no risk of crash and flicker. All the functions were very smooth. After four hours of editing my short film, I still felt a little overwhelmed.
The next week, as usual, camera class, director class, script writing class. And I also made second film. I started preparing for the second film early, because the first film was not good as I expected, so I spent a lot of time on the second film “Life Game”. The film lasts four minutes and tells the story of a poor man who is invited by a mysterious man to participate in a game. The winner gets everything and the loser loses his life. As last time, I was shooting on Hollywood’s backlot. All the shots were good, and it took me a day to complete the editing and show them at the main building before the end of the course.
The third week, it is mainly lectures, some industry staff told us their experience and industry rules and some information that is not usually available, I learned a lot from them. It includes the breakdown of scripts, the requirements for actors, tips in the production stage and the lighting technique.
On the last day, NYFA held final screening, and put our last film on the big screen to show to parents and students. The room was very big, like a real film screening. The first time I saw my works playing in public, I still felt a sense of accomplishment. Next is the certificates and photo taking,and I exchanged my instagram with other students, then I started to pack up my things and ready to back to China the next day. I was writing this when I received the information about cancel of my flight, so I had to spend an extra day LA XD (actually two days, two nights I spent on the sofa in my teacher’s room).
In conclusion, the 3 weeks of film making is really fruitful, I learned some knowledge that is not usually available in school, and I made some foreign friends, except the food, everything there is fine….
Mark Yang
2019.08.10