CATHY LE: "MUNDANE MONDAY" ON TUESDAY!

"My only week of Winter Break"

I'm such a busybody, especially now that I finally have a car. This last week, I literally lost track of the time and day of week because I always had something to do. I'd wake up at 7am some days, 3.34pm other days. I'd sleep at 10pm some days and 4am other days.One day just blurred into the next day.

   Tuesday, I drove to Burbank, CA to visit Video Symphony, a school for professionals in the film industry, with our dear Serbian Exchange students. They used to be a retraining facility for professionals already working at companies like Universal, but now they're open to entry level (i.e. me!). I've known that Burbank was home to lots of film industry stuff since we filmed our semester project at St. Joseph's Hospital last year, but I didn't realize the magnitude of it until this day.
   It's interesting the different paths you can take after high school to get into the industry. Video Symphony focuses on post production, like editing, sound, and special effects. It's comforting to know that they really help you get a job after you graduate, but it's too specific for me to choose as a post secondary school. Learning how to make films is only one part of it.Becoming a well rounded person with lots of different experiences is a big part. But I gotta learn how to use Cinema 4D.

CATHY LE'S "MUNDANE MONDAY"

"Merry New Year!" It's 2010, though I hardly feel anything is different. It's an arbitrary decision we make to have an excuse to change our lives. So I don't make New Year Resolutions. Since I'm done marching the Rose Parade though, I find myself with slightly more free time on my hands. We've had exchange students from the Media Education Centre in Serbia over here in L.A. for the past two weeks. I've been sort of out of the loop since I've been rehearsing with my marching band, but on Tuesday and Wednesday, we'll be having Hollywood Behind the Scenes days, visiting places such as Modern Film and Video Symphony. I recently got my computer back and am in the process of finding an editing program that works better than Windows Movie Maker. I use Final Cut Pro a lot, but that's only on my school's computer for school projects. As a very very very (emphasis on "very") low budget student film maker, I'm going to attempt to create a video using only my cellphone camera, Windows Movie Maker, some friends, and imagination. Here's the plan: We'll probably have to do a music video. MovieMaker is okay at editing picture and if we set it on mute, it's pretty great. We can record a song on a free audio recording program called Audacity. Then we can put it over the video as an audio file. Success (hopefully).

CATHY LE'S "MUNDANE MONDAY" - ON TUESDAY!

I guess I should begin by explaining the title of this blog. It occurred to me in the middle of my aesthetics class when we were discussing the bias in classical literature to only write about high class people engaged in big moments of their lives. Until recently, there hasn't been much written about regular people doing mundane, everyday things. There's plenty of "regular" people in mainstream media now, but the mundane activity part isn't quite there yet. The characters are always engaging in some big important life event and this defines who they are. This is of course purposeful because mundane sometimes isn't so interesting to watch. But at the same time, films like Napoleon Dynamite which have no "point" to it, are popular. Simply put, are we defined by what we do every day or by our big periodic accomplishments?

 

It's interesting to me right now because, I'm just doing all these mundane and "everyday things", not anything film industry related in particular-- filling out some college applications, going to band practice from 7am-7pm everyday to prepare for the Rose Parade, chatting with my friends online, sleeping. But I'm finding inspiration for filmming everywhere: from modern-day segregation in LAUSD schools, to how bands and other large masses of people are controlled, to the new ways humans communicate in this technological age of texting, webcamming, and facebook.

Cathy Le's Mundane Monday will post every Monday morning on Freshi Now.

STARTING NEXT WEEK: CATHY LE'S "MUNDANE MONDAY"

Freshi Now writer Cathy Le begins her weekly blog next week!   Cathy is a senior at Cleveland High School, and is now looking to her future as a filmmaker - and the best way to get there!

Mundane Monday starts on December 28th!