Hey guys,

Tomorrow’s meeting is pretty important–we will be discussing nominations for next year.

We will be discussing lots of other issues as well, like Quick N Dirty, so please bring any submissions for the festival with you!

The weather will be wonderful, but this is important!!! So please come! In fact, this meeting is mandatory. Whoever is not present will be noted. If you cannot come you MUST EMAIL ME YOR NOMINATION FOR THE FOLLOWING POSITIONS.

President
Vice Pres/technical advisor
MFA/MTA liason
secretary
treasurer

See you tomorrow.

Alana

Hey guys,

Meeting Thursday clearly!!

A couple things we will be discussing!!

—SICK, if anyone has any questions or concerns..mainly for those not done shooting, but for those who have, we will talk about editing the pieces.
—QUICK N DIRTY–where, when, and submissions! BRING anything you want to submit to thursday’s meeting!
—Pro-choice psuedo project for next semester…just discussing the possibility!

Yey, see y’all Thursday!!

Alana

Hey all.

Meeting tomorrow. Yey. Please come so we can see where everyone is at in terms of scenes.

To members who are also in the MCTV class bring any DVD’s with projects that you want to submit to the quick n dirty this year!!!

Alana

Hey y’all,

Anyway, we have lots to do guys. I set up a budget request with student council, and Scott will be representing us since I have to film an Obama event in the Miller Forum.
The amount is for $500, and should cover your special effects needs. But I’m not sure since no one gave me a budget.

I need to know when you guys are filming!! Send me the dates if you have them set! Let me know if you want me on set!!!

Filming needs to happen as soon as possible. And then editing will follow.

It seems like a lot, and it is a lot of work, but shoots are pretty fun! Also most of your scenes are pretty short…tell me what you need so I can help!

I should be filming this weekend also, but in the evening.

Keep in touch with me everyone!!!
Alana

Hey guys,

Hope everyone had a super relaxing break!

Meeting this Thursday, same place and time…I’m currently corresponding with Student council about additional funding…so we’ll see how that goes. KEEP YOUR RECIEPTS SO THAT YOU CAN BE REIMBURSED FOR ANYTHING YOU HAVE PURCHASED THUS FAR.

Is anyone planning on filming before Thursday? Let me know!! And even if not, let me know if you need help with your shoot, whenever it occurs, in any way shape or form.

One last thing–I recieved an email about having some club members represent the MFA at the “Through the Red Doors” Event…I can’t attend because it’s on a Saturday and I have a scheduled shoot at the Allentown Women’s Center…would anyone be willing to represent the MFA? The event is Sat. April 12, from 12-2:30 in the field house.

Let me know!! And I’ll see you Thursday!

Hey guys,

just wanted to throw a few things out there that i didn’t cover in the meeting last night…

When filming, get some “transition shots” that we can use to connect all the scenes through spiffy editing.

for example, in the haas scene, do a close up of one guy pushing the elevator button.

for the drug scene, do a close up of a hand turning on the stove and turning a knob. When we edit, we can go between these scenes with a visual flow that will make the entire piece much more visually interesting.

I’ll be assisting Erika’s shoot on Saturday at 3pm in the village, and hannah and nicole’s Haas scene on Sunday at 9:30am. So if you guys have confusion as to what i mean by transition shots, i’ll be there to clarify.

i’ll be filming my scene sometime in the middle of next week…

Those of you filming after Easter break, no worries. Just reply to this message and remind me who those of you are.

peter kleinberger, will you be filming before or after break?

Again, i just want to reiterate that I don’t want you to be afraid of telling me what i’m doing wrong, if any of you see anything that should be done differently. i can’t change anything if i am not aware of what has to be changed. We’re all very busy, and this is not the only extracurricular project i’m working on so i need your help to run this smoothly. I’m glad my absence in the beginning of yesterday’s meeting allowed you to vent and figure out how to deal with some of your concerns.

Lastly i;m going to call coppa and find out about department funding. Until then, keep any receipts for anything you purchase that is shoot related.

talk to Scott Rod about any special effects material you need!!!!

Hey guys,

OK so meeting tomorrow! I’m very excited because we are making great progress. Thank you to everyone who sat in on casting and attened the casting meeting, and covering for me hardcore. Thanks a million. I will repay you by making sure this project turns out to be amazing!!! With your help of course..

Anyway, meeting tomorrow to see where we all stand. We’ll do lighting. If anyone has figured out when they can begin shooting, we’ll talk about that too, and let me know if you want me/melinda/taylor to help out!!! we’ll figure it out.

Remember to plan out ur shots. it will make life so much easier!!

k, I’ll see y’all tomorrow!! woohoo!!

Alana

A quick reminder and then what we’re doing Thursday…PLEASE COME THURSDAY 4:30 CA 155 It is a very important meeting.

You should definitely check out the film “Motherless” at 7pm in the Miller Forum tonight—it’s about pre-Roe deaths due to illegal(aka unsafe) abortions. This topic is very important because policy makers are trying to take down Roe Vs. Wade NOW and make abortion an issue that can be decided by individual states. Ladies, this means your reproductive rights are in jeopardy! Therefore you should go see this film…also the filmmakers will be there; it should be very exciting.

NOW for MFA concerns!!!!
Last meeting was great–We have a solid format that was agreed upon by those in attendence! We elected leaders who will be in charge of producing certain scenes. They are as follows:

Library scene: Taylor Johnson
News Anchor sequence: Alana Torres
Photo Lab: Elise Bish
Dorm room web cast: Katie Silverstein
Garden Room: ? ? ? ??
Druggie Scene:? ?? ? ?
Haas Tower: Hannah and Nicole
Front Lawn: Alana and Melinda

This just means these people will lead the groups and keep things organized. We still need the rest of you to assign yourself to help out in certain scenes. And as you can see two scenes need leadership.

Think of this project as a bunch of Quick n Dirty challenges…that will all have the same theme for the whole semester.

THIS THURSDAY!!!! We will use this time to form solid groups for each scene and to write the scripts for your scenes (if you havent done so already)

PLEASE COME THURSDAY! it will be a very important session.

much love,
Alana

HEY!!!

Is Thursday at 4:30pm a BAD meeting time for anyone? I heard reports of 6pm being problematic, and I got better work study hours this semester…

Dr. Coppa, does 4.30 still work for you?

If this time seems to work we’ll go ahead and have our first meeting of the semester this thursday…I really wanna get rolling with our Zombie movie!

Again, we’ll just meet at the bottom of the CA and see what rooms are open…after this week I’ll sign out a room for us this semester so that won’t be an issue!!!

ONLY REPLY TO THIS EMAIL IF 4:30 PM ON THURSDAYS IS A BAD TIME FOR YOU. If I don’t hear from you I’ll assume it’s fine.

This thursday we will discuss the general story line—and assign scenes! PLEASE ATTEND!!

I’m stoked, hope you are too!
See you soon, and hope your first week isn’t too painful!

Alana

Hey guys,

Katie did an awesome job of jotting down what we talked about during the meeting, which proved to be really productive by the way. Please read all the way through and post ideas on the MFA discussion board!!
I’m going to start a timeline of events we can use to build our clips around. Please come to the next meeting with an example of reporting you’d like to parody/adapt for our purposes!! Also, add events to the timeline!

Alana!

Here’s a basic summary of what we talked about at the meeting today. I apoligize if I’ve left anything out.

One of the main ideas that generated the most interest as far as our zombie movie format goes was the mockumentary, especially as it relates to the media and its penchant for making disasters into entertainment, covering stories but not doing anything to help victims, and dropping coverage of a disaster (i.e. Katrina, Darfur) when something more commercial and interesting comes along (Paris Hilton). Also, the blame game: we could parody shows like Crossfire. Everyone on the news could be asking who’s to blame for this zombie outbreak on the Muhlenberg Campus. We could parody blatant commercialism: “This coverage of the Muhlenberg Zombie outbreak brought to you by Ford.” The basic concept as it stands now is to have a few (maybe 4) main characters who are frequently interviewed by reporters. The story will be constructed through a combination of interviews, media coverage, and scenes (perhaps captured on cell phone or security camera); possibly even dramatizing survivors’ conflicting accounts.

Different news stations also bring different slants to the zombie outbreak, of course. Think about how Fox would cover it as opposed to how The Daily Show would cover it, or Oprah, or CNN, etc.

This format is also extremely writer-friendly and facilitates collaboration between members of the MFA, the MTA, and Communications majors.

We talked about ways in which we could make the movie more interesting formally: footage from cell phone cameras, security cameras [high angle and grainy], self-reflexivity [filming a television studio, using some older cameras as props], black and white with some color [blood].

Melinda suggested that a good potential deadline for the basic script (not the shooting script) would be Performance Day, which is the last day of exams this semester. That way, we could work on converting it into a shooting script over winter break.

The ending: the media has moved on to a different story and the zombies remain undefeated.

It was suggested that the movie’s proceeds go to Katrina relief. Besides augmenting our potential “message”, we may also get more funding from Student Government.

For next week’s meeting, all interested in writing should find an example of disaster reporting: a video on youtube, Lexus Nexus, etc. and use it as inspiration and as a parody model for a zombie coverage scene. If not a fleshed-out scene, at least a walk-through.

We could also use “footage” of the zombie outbreak to play on TVs in the background of broadcasting studios and Seegers.

Dr. Coppa suggests that when you write your scenes, think about ways to fight gender bias and to make your scene more interesting by developing form.

The weekly challenge theme is—Commercials!

Yay Zombies!

–Katie