Jake Price - "Don't Get Too Comfortable"
Jake Price
Rowan University
It’s been a while since I wrote one of these. I’ve been interning at JTwo for about six months now and I’m loving every bit of it! A lot has happened since my last post, so I’ll run you through some quick updates:
- I DJed the JTwo New Years Eve party (lit)
- I wrote a more unified script for the interns video (now titled “The Studio Life” by Justin)
- I started shooting scenes for said video
- Oh, there’s a new intern this semester, Scott. He’s a cool guy!
- I got to star in a video for Comcast. I felt like a big star, having a makeup and wardrobe department at my disposal. But don’t worry, I’m still humble about being an amazing actor.
- I went to the Addy Awards with Scott and Travis and we took home 3 awards for JTwo!
- I started working on another video series to help with revamping the JTwo U program.
- I did some client work for Century 21 and a lot more client work for FAAR.
- Also, another intern, Chris, started a couple weeks ago.
So that’s a rushed overview of where things have been going, but I think what’s most important isn’t what I’ve done, but what I’ve learned. Sure, I learned skills here and there with editing or when using a camera or light, but I think some of the bigger things I learned had to do with my own work ethic. When I first started at JTwo, I was eager to show my bosses what I could do — this hasn’t changed — and I think I really kicked ass my first semester. I’m not saying I stopped trying, but I noticed that I definitely didn’t feel the same need to try as hard when I came back from my winter break. I felt more comfortable in the office (for the most part, a good thing!), but I got a bit too lax about it all. I came in late a few times and sometimes forgot to say when I was going to be in or not (my schedule this semester is confusing and changes week-to-week). For the most part, things have been great, but I learned that I need to always stay hungry for more work, always be at 100%, and always communicate with people. These are life skills I learned through trial and error, but hopefully you, future intern reading this, can see where I went wrong and do things right for yourself.
But, like I said, getting comfortable around the office isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Working at JTwo for six months means I’ve had more opportunities to bond with the people around me (the dogs, too). Some of the best parts of being at JTwo are the (unfiltered) conversations that pop up randomly throughout the day. I know that when this internship ends, that will be one of the things I miss most – the people.
I still have a month left, and after coming to terms with some of my flaws in the past, I’m committing to turning myself around and having an amazing last 4 weeks of being a JTwo intern.
Until next time,
Your friendly neighborhood Spiderman
Crista Pillitteri - Rowan University
Crista Pillitteri
Rowan University
When JTWO Films took me in, I was a college senior. Yet, I still had a ton to learn. As an intern, I could have never expected the amount of experience they would give me.
…Or that I wouldn’t leave.
In my previous internships, I watched my supervisors during the shoots. I shadowed as they setup the wires, and they held the camera. I listened as they ran the show. But at JTWO, I was part of the crew. I had responsibilities, and as an intern so will you. I ran a camera. I setup the audio. I edited videos. And I had an opinion. Because I knew that the work I was doing was serious, for real clients, and because JTWO treated me as part of their crew, I worked harder. And it made me better.
JTWO gave me opportunities to both perfect a craft I was interested in, and to figure out new ones. I came in wanting to be a cinematographer and left dabbling in After Effects.
With JTWO, you can go in any direction, once you (and they) realize what your passions are. As an intern I did work with editing, camera, interviewing, graphics, and social media. You’ll quickly realize that there are so many areas for you to fit your interests into.
I think what is most important though, what really made JTWO different from any other internships I could have done, is that the JTWO guys genuinely wanted me to grow as a filmmaker. They took time to keep pushing me. And having people behind you like that is something that is a really big deal when you’re still trying to figure out where you’re going.
Relapse
Week 1 Blog
My first assignment at Jtwo was to create a short film about the other intern, Brian. Justin talked to us about doing something more than just a simple ‘about me’ type video that was unmemorable: “Hi, my name is Jake and I love it here at Jtwo! I got interested in TV and Film when I was-” *yawn*. The goal here was to take the subject, in my case Brian, and to find a story that people could connect with. Justin stressed that we should find an audience and reach out to them; this film needed to carry a message, and it needed to know who to deliver it to. So now, at the end of this process, I’m looking back at how the PSA “Relapse” came to be.
It all started with Brian and I sitting down and having a deep discussion about our lives. I wrote down everything we talked about and started piecing it together, connecting dots, drawing lines between different parts of his life (read: A Beautiful Mind) to find a story worth telling.
I originally focused on telling the story of Brian, the guy who made it to this point in his life because of a bunch of experiences that shaped him, including his history with drugs, getting a job in the entertainment industry, going to community college, meeting his girlfriend, and taking classes at Rowan that helped him decide he love documentary-making. I brought it to Justin. Scrap the idea. Rather, cut the fat – The story doesn’t have to be about why or how Brian got to Jtwo. Find a story that features Brian, but goes way deeper in meaning. So I trimmed down, cutting out anything that explained why he loves tv and film. I cut out school. The theme that hit harder and felt like something I could really work with was addiction.
I rewrote the script two more times until I had something good. I thought, “what if I could still incorporate his love for tv and documentaries?” He told me how as s child he loved watching National Geographic. So, the first shot in my film about Brian was just that – National Geographic. It served a purpose for the story, but using a NG clip felt like the right personal touch, something subliminal for me or Brian, but not for the audience.
Brian’s girlfriend let us shoot at her apartment. The whole shoot was done in one afternoon. I bought an old CRT TV from a thrift store (points for dedication). We blocked every window we could to get the room as dark as possible. I then placed one light right in front of the TV facing Brian. We used no other lights whatsoever for this shoot, which worked out really well (albeit unconventional, don’t try this at home kids). I had him do a bunch of different gestures and had him just sit staring into the (probably blinding) light for a while as I got different angles around him. We did a few shots of him grabbing the bottle and voila, I had my footage. We also did his voiceovers that same day and I brought it all back to Jtwo and loaded it into the computer.
I liked the concept of him reflecting on his life, while also literally reflecting back to the television. I had been gathering footage for a few days already from different online sources to use as the TV content. I wanted it to feel real, so I needed to have the TV be like a single camera shot I could cut to, meaning that at any time there needed to be something on the screen. I made a copy of my script and broke it down line by line, finding footage that matched each line so the TV would reflect what he was saying. I downloaded all the videos I found and started editing everything together.
I first lined up the voiceovers and the shots of Brian. I wanted him to match his VO. Once I had my radio edit (audio-focused edit) complete, I started adding in TV clips to line up. Once all the TV clips were ready, I exported them into After Effects to give them their realistic TV-look. I used a video I shot at Brian’s girlfriend’s of the TV turning on and off as reference for the TV monitor and made it look like these web videos were actually playing on the TV. I bought it back into Premiere when I was done and did work on the audio and sound design (the whooshes, muffled tv sounds, reverb when you hear his thoughts, etc.). I made a few more tweaks from there, but that was basically it.
I remember a few clips of Brian accidentally worked great, like one where I said something to him and he let out a small smile (first thought: ‘bad take, don’t use it’). It was perfect to match up with when he said that taking Vicodin made him, “feel… better.” The credits were also fun to make, since I already had the idea of showing the definition of the word relapse. I thought it would be a perfect name for the video, to I left the title up, going through the rest of the credits to show this wasn’t just a definition – but the name of the film.
This was a really fun and satisfying project to work on, and if this is just an inkling of a taste of what’s to come here at Jtwo, I can’t wait for what I get to work on next!
Until next time,
– Jake From State Farm
[TL:DR] I made a short film. I tell you how I did it.
