SAE 2.0

We’ve arrived at the last day of the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2010. It’s early in the morning (for a Sunday at least..) at we’ve already been clearing out some of the work spaces. It’s Volkskrantdag at the festival, where people can see a special selection of films, and can choose various ‘routes’ to follow. For us what remains is the last edits, clearing all the very full harddisks, making back-ups, packing up and clearing out. Tonight there is a Volunteersparty for the more than 700 volunteers of the IFFR. Tomorrow we’re returning all the gear. And that will be that. The end of IFFR 2010. It’s been great! Hopefully ’till next year!

Goodmorning everyone. It’s another early morning. Yesterday late evening, after 12 at night when we were literary kicked out of the office, while we were still working, we went to the Volunteersparty. It was ok, didn’t make it too late since there still is a lot of work to do. Today is the Big Day at the festival, the Tiger Awards ceremony will take place. Last year we met the winner beforehand and it was so nice to see him win. Let’s see who will win this year. In the office, at the moment, are some people who are working on the Tiger Awards. Three SAE students are preparing all the footage that will be shown live at the Tiger Awards: leaders, bumpers, trailers, nominees and eventually the winner. They’ve been working on it for quite some time now. Today is the moment of truth. They will also que and start all the footage live.

As for the rest of the team, it’s still capturing, editing, rendering, uploading time. Since we had some nice interviews yesterday, if there is time, it would be nice to do some more interviews. We’re also making an edit for the HBF award show, which will be held on Saturday.

Tonight was the last time we did the Big Talk Talkshow of IFFR. Somehow I think we are more relaxed after the many times we’ve done it. But somehow you still feel a bit of the nervousness that everyone has, what if anything goes wrong last minute? Well it did, one of the lights broke just before the crowd was supposed to enter the cinema. Then the projection from Final Cut didn’t appear on the cinemascreen, and when it did, it was a still image instead of moving. Panic! We couldn’t solve the problem on time, so we decided to ditch the leader and play the time-lapse from Quicktime. All in all, I guess the public didn’t notice what’s going on ‘backstage’. A lot of people working backstage tell us that these things happen all the time, but the clue is not to panic and just wing it, improvise and it will all work out. Most people don’t even notice it. And that’s the beauty of moviemagic!

Oh, I’ve lost count, the days flow in eachother, I can’t seem to seperate what happened today, yesterday and the day before. The day started early again, editing, editing and did I mention editing? At 12 o’clock we started to prepare for the Big Talkshow, rushing to get there and set up. In the end the show was cancelled. Not feeling to go back to edit after 2 days, or even more, 16 hour editing sessions, we wanted to film something short, snappy and interesting. We wandered around the area where we had set up for the Big Talkshow. At the Cinemart desk area we met someone who was working there, we asked her to introduce us to some directors we could interview. And we succeeded! She really helped us out, we had around 6 interviews with several directors. They were really nice and friendly. After each interview we kept talking and those conversations were so nice, I wish we could have filmed that! They gave us really nice and good tips. It was educational and inspiring. Basically, everyone said ‘ just make your movie, even if you don’t have a budget or time, just try to do it with the means you have. And you should develop you own style, watch a lot of movies and then leave their style and create your own. And do it from the heart, show what is near to you and means a lot to you. That’s what filmmaking is. And don’t forget to have fun!

After yesterday’s Trash Humpers’ screening (one of the weirdest films I’ve ever seen), the day ended with success. Today our task is editing and generally post production all day until night. At 18:00 we have to film an art performance by Xenson Ssenkaaba and afterwards we reach the end for today. IFFR is a great place to be. The crew is on fire since we have been working almost none stop for the IFFR and since it’s fun to be working with students from SAE Rotterdam. Back to work now!

-Ilias

Some students work at the Film Controle during the Film Festival. Berend explains in this video what he is doing at Film Controle.

Berend at Film Controle

Jorn, Fabio and Fernando prepared all the video material for the Grand Opening of the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Behind the scenes at the opening of IFFR

We are already on day 5 of the film festival and quite a few days to go. Today, as the past days, is very hectic, and somehow we’ve managed to get a few minutes of quiet time, so time to give a short update. What’s going on today? Well, way to much. This morning some students got to work with the edits, which one of them is finally online!! Most of the other edits are now in end stages of postproduction, which takes more time than expected, but will be online soon. Then other students are filming all day a Masterclass for young filmmakers. After that the students will prepare the set-up for a talkshow, and then film it. Meanwhile, other students wil record short interviews with directors who are participating in the Hubert Ball Fonds competition. So a very busy day…and we’re just half way of this day..

IFFR’s Big Talk is a talkshow where prominent guests, filmmakers and the public interact with each other. The audio for these talkshows are being managed by SAE audio students. It is also filmed by SAE film students. Yesterday was our first Big Talk show in the Pathe 1, which has the biggest screen (10mx23.5m) in the Netherlands!
On this big screen we projected a time-lapse which we made. While we were in the projection room to operate the projector, we also saw at first hand how the digital and the 35mm projector worked. Just before the public walked in, everything was set up just in time, making the talkshows a succes!

Today we will be shooting the Big Talk again and soon we will post footage of SAE students at work, and more!

Two crews just went out to film the crowds at the opening of the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2010.

Here’s a Q&A between Pauline, the projectleader of SAE 2.0 at IFFR and Alex, filmstudent at SAE Rotterdam.

Q: How did it go?
A: The shoot went ok, we could be more cooperative and a bit more fast in the technical matters, like setting up the camera, stuff like that.
Q: So what did you learn today?
A: A lot of people like to be in front of the camera and say alot.
Q: What else?
A: Getting to your location on time is very important. That’s it basically.
Q: Thank you.