Jacob Snyder’s blog

Well, I've really only been able to edit one to two nights a week, but the rough cut of the film is now at 40 minutes.  Kinda surprised me considering I'm only at scene 21 (out of a little over 50).  Originally I thought the entire movie would be about 40 minutes long.  But I'm finding it'll be more like an hour and a half to two hours long.  And we did all of the principal shooting in about a week (!!!).  

I'm challenging myself by trying to edit the film without a temp track--that is, without any music initially beneath it, but to find the rhythm through the visuals alone--and it's really really challenging to do.  In fact, I'm giving up on that and starting to use a temp track.

I'm happy with some of it.  I'm unhappy with the rest.  

I'll probably have other short films completed before this one is.  Could be over a year.  Could be longer.

You know, one of the greatest things about producing this film is that, as I become more familiar with the story through editing, I'm realizing how much of the story actually comes from my own life, and when I had no conscious intention of putting anything biographical in there.  To be honest, it's getting very creepy, and I'm seeing where some of these characters came from--people who have had deep psychological effects on my life.  And it's not just characters, but also plot, story, incidental events within the film, and etc.  It's very very weird.  At times I feel like I'm living my movie.

Um, that's all I have to say about my life right now.  The rest is pretty depressing.

Here are some more teaser frames.  Yes, the "Egosis Berry" does look rather styrofoamy at the moment.  I'm crossing my fingers that I'll get Adobe AfterEffects for Christmas.

Monk Still (effected)

So, what have I been doing lately? Well, I'll make a list:

1. Filming a few weekend weddings. Not EVERY weekend, but a few for a local videography company. It's not bad money--$15 an hour. But my friend James told me that I probably deserve more for that, and that got me thinking. The lowest possible rate I would charge to film and edit a wedding ON MY OWN is $500. And, believe it or not, THAT'S CHEAP. Maybe it's something I should do myself, and not under another company. I have the capabilities to do it, so why not?

And it doesn't just have to be weddings! It can be commercials, infomercials, documentaries, etc. Man, I would LOVE to professionally edit a documentary or two. And there's REAL MONEY involved. The idea gets me excited. How does one go about becoming a professional documentary filmmaker? It's a serious idea I have.

2. I've been reading a book by Sergei Eisenstein entitled The Film Sense. The first chapter (or "book" within the book) was called Word and Image. Mainly, Eisenstein was discussing montage and how montage actually existed before film was even invented, and that it existed even in old literature. He cited Milton's "Paradise Lost" as one of the main examples, by excerpting a passage and breaking it down into "shots." It's very exciting to read an old text like Milton's and to see how the basic concept of film existed before film itself. Eisenstein also said that Milton is an excellent teacher for any filmmaker.

Of particular interest to me--Eisenstein conveys the idea that an artist of a particular medium can only better understand his own medium by studying and becoming involved in other mediums. Thus a musician, for example, who has knowledge and experience with painting, writing, filmmaking, theater, and etc., will become a better musician for it. And who can better prove this principle than the artist as filmmaker? Film is the only medium that contains all of the other mediums in art. It is the very embodiment of the Gesamtkunstwerk Wagner described in his writings (Eisenstein, who even designed his two "Ivan" movies in leitmovic structure, mentions Wagner in the book.).

I feel behind with film, even though it's basically what I've been doing since I was ten. In the last four years of college I didn't take a single course that pertained to film, except for Film History my very last semester; and I haven't produced a single serious film my entire college career. But even though I feel behind, I don't think I should feel so bad about that, because I have been striving at music (and from a certain view, failing at it) and I've been striving at writing (and, also from a certain view, failing at it). I've been absorbing myself into mediums that I don't have a significant amount of experience in. And even though I've put the filmmaking on the shelf for a few years, why should I feel guilty for this? When I now return to visual storytelling, and with the knowledge I now have of these other mediums involved in it, then certainly I've only gained something from my time in these other fields of art.

I have to remind myself that, to be a great filmmaker, you don't necessarily have to be a brilliant musician, or a brilliant writer, and so on. But it's my conviction that you must--MUST--have an adequate (and "adequate" is certainly an understatement) knowledge of these arts. If I didn't have Brahms or Tchaikovsky, Homer or Shakespeare, van Gogh or Picasso, then my own art would be dead.

So I'm liking the Eisenstein book. He has a lot of good things to say.

3. I'm setting aside the film editing for a few weeks until I can clear my head of these other things. I'm just distracted. I have a temp job that I'm trying to work out with my schedule--It's canvassing/surveying job for the US Chamber of Commerce, which goes on until about Nov. 3rd. It's been an interesting experience, and plus it's been paying $10 an hour which ain't bad. I mean, just to go around asking people a couple of questions! Also, I'm starting a new full-time overnight job tomorrow evening (overnight stockman for Wal-Mart. woohoo!), I'm trying to put together a montage for my church, and I'm still trying to think through this health insurance crap which is really just...a bunch of crap. My plan is, in about a week & 1/2, after I'm settled into to a routine, to seriously get down to editing my film.

And here's a crazy thing: I'm thinking of redoing this movie next summer. Not that I'll throw out this one, but I want to make a shorter, much more condensed, and a silent version of this film. I didn't have enough time to plan out this film. And though I think it turned out all right, I don't think it's beautifully brilliant or anything. I want to plan it so well that every single shot is already ready before it's shot. AND...I want it to be about ten minutes long so I can submit it to CalArts in a few years. The current film I'm making will be over an hour long, at least.

4. I have ideas for other films. The script I'm writing now is another fantasy film. I'll say no more in that area. It's bad to "release" an idea to people, because it releases creative energy, as I've found.

So, I was at a wedding not too long ago talking to a pretty cool guy who I was in a Bible study with, and I realized after I talked to him that my sense of humor around him can be very dry.  After I walked away from the conversation, I was thinking to myself, "man...my personality around him has a very different...'flavor' to it..."  But it's not just him.  If I really think about it, I'm a different person around EVERYBODY.  A different 'flavor,' if you will, sometimes so much different in front of one guy than the other guy that I have to rush off to the bathroom and stare myself down in the mirror and demand, "OK, just who the hell ARE you, mister??!"  I think some people believe that you are really the most like yourself around the people you're closest to, or the people you know the best, such as your family, but I am probably the furthest from myself--and the most distant--when I'm at home than when I'm anywhere else (probaby not regular, but it's true). 

So I feel like a putty.  And every person gets his/her chance to involuntary mold me into a different creation upon each meeting.  I can be arrogant, I can be meek, I can be patient, short-tempered, calm, edgy, easy going, uptight, well-humored, grave, annoyingly talkative, suspiciously taciturn...  And I'm not simply referring to moods I get at certain times, but I'm talking about generally consistent behavior I have when I'm around each specific individual. 

You know the whole "worlds colliding" problem, when you're afraid to get together groups of people you know from different places, but who are unfamiliar with each other?  I have that to extremes sometimes, because you're used to the putty of your personality being molded by one person a certain way, and another person another certain way, but when you get them together they'll both be molding you in their very different ways all at once and what in the world will that do to you IT WILL RENDER YOU INTO SOMETHING NEW AND GROTESQUE AND DANGEROUS AND TERRIFYING!  AHHH!!!  MY BRAIN!!!!

Well, anyway, this is my first entry on VOX.  I wish I could upload some images or media or something with this post but I'm on a computer that's just been set up in my room, so it has nothing on it.  And speaking of that, I'm on a computer in my room!  I've never had one in my room before and it's pretty sweet.  I love it because, for the first time, I can sit alone and locked away at night to some Tchaikovsky or Brahms while typing to all of you fine people in nothing but my underpants!  How blessed my life is!

Crap.  I wish I had a digital camera right now...

Anywho... the update on ME:  I had a couple of bad things happen to me today:  1) Barnes & Noble has not called me back yet.  That is not particularly BAD because I shouldn't expect them to call me back so soon, but I'm just impatient to get the job.  THAT'S why it's bad.  And 2)  Fusion Media DID call me back today and told me that they gave the full-time editing position to someone else.  YET.  Here is the good thing about that:  the boss guy said that the only reason he hired some other guy is because he has had specific experience editing a fishing video and other sports-related videos, which I have not.  The boss guy also told me that he thought my demo DVD was "excellent" and he wants me to edit for him in the future.  That was a nice thing to say, and it made me feel good.  Yes.  Mm hmm.  Twinkies.  (what?)  

I wonder what roasted dingo tastes like.

In additional news... I am currently working on my friend Callie's wedding video, which may very well be done tomorrow.  And that means right after that I'll begin work on my WiLd and cRrAzy movie about monks!!  Fasten your safety belts, ladies and gentlemen, and get ready for an intense ride with a monk who is walking pensively about a stone building while contemplating metaphysical things.  It'll be so intense you'll be wetting yourselves.

That's the report now.

Play it straight, people.