Last night we had a great film festival.

The judges were:

Kristen Anchor
Director, Creative Alliance MovieMakers

Erica Ginsberg
Executive Director, Docs In Progress®

Jonathan Palevsky
Program Director, WBJC 91.5 FM
Host, Cinema Sundays at the Charles

The winners were:

1st Place: Dan Regner, for “The Fork”

2nd Place: Nicole Myers, for “Hello Dowry”

3rd Place: Ryan East, for “Linger”

The Fall 2009 FLM354 section I taught came through with a second place win at the fest (the judges did not know of this film’s connection to me). From left to right are Michelle Rossignol, Nicole Myers, Stephanie Yee, moi, Jenny Dang, Corey Chaney.

Thanks to all who helped make this a possibility!

The night of the February 16 Baltimore Speakers Series event, some of us were lucky enough to have dinner with Mia Farrow beforehand.

Here I am, with the guest of honor and my girlfriend Jen.

A great night!

I invite everyone to our film festival tonight: Stevenson Film Festival on March 4, 2010

FLM108 students Leah Steber, Eric Gerhart (hidden by camera) and Jose Sarmiento roll out their film reel after finishing their last single-shot movie today.

Next stop – the montage films, inspired by the work of Soviet filmmakers of the 1920s, such as Sergei Eisenstein. We’ll watch his 1925 masterpiece “Battleship Potemkin” next week!

Although we won’t know until next week whether or not they exposed their first film projects properly, the FLM108 students completed their Project 1 film shoots today. Thanks to the blizzard, this was one week later than originally planned. Still, all was good (we hope . . .). It’s always fun to see how well the first film reels come out. Here, Aurianna Mills looks through the camera to frame up her single shot mise-en-scène movie.

Film students Collin Diesenberg and Justin Henry discuss how to shoot in the middle of all the snow!

Film students Lucas Cullen, Katie Shelton, and K.C. White prepare to shoot their first movie. Looks like Lucas is impervious to the cold. K.C. has a scarf, at least. 5 minutes later, the rain started.

Senior Film/Video major Sarah Eikmeier shows me her awesome storyboards, in the video lab, for her upcoming Senior Project, “Lost & Found.”

Despite some recent snow delays, it is moving along nicely, and should be as terrific as the script promises it to be!

Senior Film/Video major Li Zhu shows me her amazing storyboards, in my office, for her upcoming Senior Project, “Spectacles.”

It promises to be a wonderful film, and I look forward to seeing it when it is done!

2010.02.17_FLM108Practice_21, originally uploaded by Christopher Llewellyn Reed.

Today was the last day of practice before we shoot our first films, on film, next week.

Student Jolie East-Miji holds the camera door up to the light so she can focus the diopter ring to her eye.

Students in this class use the classic Arriflex-S 16mm MOS Camera to shoot three projects, as follows:

1. A silent single-shot mise-en-scène film, 50 seconds long, modeled after the first films ever made, in the 1890s, by the French pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumière, and the American inventor Thomas Edison.

2. A silent 1-minute montage film, modeled on the films made by Soviet filmmakers, like Sergei Eisenstein, in the 1920s.

3. An experimental film, with a sound design added in post-production, modeled on the work of such noted filmmakers as the American director Maya Deren, who worked in the 1940s.

All of these projects are shot on black & white reversal film, and edited on a Steenbeck flatbed editing table.

We shoot film, touch film, edit film, screen film.

Stay tuned for more photos and film work to come.