Endnote.

There seems to be a huge backlog of content to update this blog with, so over the next few days, I'm hoping to write up a bunch of posts and automate them for the next few weeks.  Maybe a slow drip of Kemp-thoughts will be helpful for someone.  Or maybe just me. 

Endnote was the short film that occupied my "What I'm Working On" tab up there for far too long.  Here's the final product:

Endnote from Kemp Lyons on Vimeo.

I've been an employee of Cornerstone University now for three and a half years.  In my position, I get the joy of helping students with their film productions.  There came a point last year (at about this time) that I said to myself, "Kemp, you haven't actually been on a film set since you graduated...." 

"You know what, self?  You're right!  We should do something about that."

So I wrote something.  And made it.

I learned many things in the process.

1. Making short films on the cheap is difficult.  You really do ask a lot of people.  If it weren't for Producer Sarah Schaefer and Director of Photography Mike Brown, I wouldn't have been able to do this.  These two people suffered through a lot of phone calls, emails, and production meetings just to help make this film happen and I am deeply grateful.  It's because of Sarah that we were able to have any sort of decent location.  Mike Brown helped transform my blocky ideas into beautiful shots. 

My editor, Leesa Lehmann, is equally amazing.  We originally scheduled out that she'd have all the footage ready to go during some vacation time she had coming up.  That didn't work out.  So she spent stolen hours here and there over a period of four months getting this film cut together.  I couldn't be more happy with the result.

Our actors were amazing.  Flexible, talented, good spirited, and just amazing to work with.  I'm deeply grateful for their sacrifices to make this film.  Largely because of this next point.  Lesson: love your people.  Shower them with praise.

2. Getting back into shooting scheduling was...  difficult.  I was an idiot.  Big time.  I signed off on a schedule that alotted us 8 minutes per shot.  Madness.  Sheer madness.  Poor Ujwal and Whitney pretty much hung out by the back of the shot for take after take after take.  We scheduled them until 11pm but they stayed until probably 1am.  Rock stars.  Lesson: 20 minutes a shot.  At least.

3. Professional practice really does help you teach.  This might be filed under, "No, duh.", but I was able to draw on this experience many, many times over the last year.  It has given me more confidence working with students and, hopefully, has resulted in them getting a better education through me.  Lesson: do this more often.


I'm currently working on ideating for some new short films.  As a faculty and staff at Cornerstone, we want to make a short film over the summer.  My problem is that I'm always coming up with ideas that take a few more effects than we have the resources to accomplish.  There's a blog post coming about that, too.

Anyway.  I hope you enjoy Endnote and it makes you think just a little about relationships and how we process them.