As I wrote in my 2021 Recap, I’ve been spending more and more time on film stuff (and publishing fewer long form essays).
I do have a few ideas for longform essays that I want to write soon, but I also want to get into the habit of posting “devlog” style posts more regularly.
Since the latter is not what most people are subscribed for, I’m going to “fork” the email list. The main list — kortina // essays — will continue to have the type of stuff I’ve posted in the past — personal essays, writing about the political / philosophical / cultural implications of technology, etc. The new list — kortina // devlog — will have more frequent progress updates about film projects I’m working on.
If you don’t care about the film stuff, hit unsubscribe, keep kortina // essays checked and uncheck kortina // devlog:
devlog #1: trailer
After a very “back to school 2021,” this year I was itching to make something — (1) well, because I was itching to make something and (2) because it seemed like the fastest way to learn a lot more about film production, cinematography, and working with a professional crew.
In Jan, I set the goal of shooting a short film as soon as I could. I ambitiously targeted a Feb shoot in West Oakland, and I was able to a make it actually happen not too far behind schedule in Mar.
I learned a ton that I want to write about —
finding a team
shot listing / lining a script
storyboarding
casting / auditioning / rehearsing
building props / making costumes
budgeting / creating a shooting schedule
safety protocols / insurance
unions
production
post-production
etc etc etc…
— but I figured I’d start by sharing what I’m working on right now — which also probably happens to be one of the more interesting things if you’re not excited about the nuts and bolts of how films are made — a trailer:
I got inspired to work on this last week, when I got back some more-or-less-final versions of the music from the composer I’ve been working with on this project, Justin Geller (ht Laris for this intro).
I was digging the music whenever I listened to it, so on Monday morning, I threw the most upbeat track in a new DaVinci Resolve timeline and started pulling in few-second clips from the final cut of the short and immediately liked the vibe it was creating.
I find editing a much more subconscious or intuitive process than writing, and this was especially the case for editing the trailer (perhaps because the entire thing was set to music, perhaps because I was already so familiar with all the footage).
In any case, it wasn’t long before I had something that seemed to work OK.
I realize that not that many people watch short films, let alone trailers for short films, but I’ve heard from a few folks in “the biz” it’s useful to have a trailer for your short, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you like the trailer, stay tuned for updates on where/when the short film will screen (hopefully at some festivals, but at the very least on the internet).
More soon!