HipCinema Labs

Learn about the process of directing narrative cinema in a one day intensive workshop in Mt. Airy Philadelphia at the MaMa Studios (corner of Carpenter Lane and Greene Street).

$95 for registration. PIFVA Members pay $85 per session. Class is designed for filmmakers who have made at least one film/video and taken entry level production courses. It is also for documentary makers who want to transition into doing narrative work. Please wear comfortable clothes and be prepared to move. This is a participatory workshop where you are expected to act as well as direct! There is no better way to understand the actor’s craft than to actually do it.

$95  November 5, 2011 9:30am to 2pm

Please email hipcinema23@yahoo.com for more information and complete registration.

Note: Cell phones must be turned off during class. You are stealing time from your classmates and yourself when you talk on the phone. Plan your Saturday accordingly.

The curriculum will cover the following:

Acting for Camera

Making Choices

Working with Your Producer

Discovering How You See Things: Composition, Lenses, Lighting

The Process of Interpretation: Working with Actors & Crew

Blocking dramatic action

Placing the Camera

Breaking Down the Scene for Coverage

Shoot to Edit

Sound Advice

Taking Care of Yourself & Others During Production

Recommended Reading:

Film Directing Shot by Shot: Visualizing from Concept to Screen by Steve Katz

Michael Caine - Acting in Film: An Actor’s Take on Movie Making by Michael Caine

The Rules of Management by Richard Templar

Catching The Big Fish by David Lynch

The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Film Editing by Michael Ondaatje

Making Movies by Sidney Lumet

On Directing Film by David Mamet

Filmmaking for Dummies by Bryan Michael Stoller

About the Instructor: Nadine Patterson has taught video/film production for the past 22 years. She completed principal photography on her first feature film as writer/director Tango Macbeth. She actively engages her students in the process of production during each class. She has made over 20 independent films. She earned a BA in Drama from Franklin & Marshall College, a Masters of Science from West Chester University, and a Masters of Art (MFA equivalent) from the prestigious London Film School in 2005.

The prevailng atmosphere facing all students who are deciding to devote their lives to filmmaking is indeed one of massive discouragement, even if it doesn’t look that way on the surface. There is really only one way out of this morass….to get going. As someone once said to me : ‘it takes longer if you don’t get started’.

Simple though this may sound, it is in fact the hardest lesson to learn. Even those of us who have been at it for quite a while have to repeat the decision to continue with the habit of just getting on with it, whatever the feelings of the day are. Doubt, insecurity and so on are just feelings we have to live with. They shouldn’t determine or shape what we do or how we do it. Then, bit by bit, a body of work emerges.

The huge advantage for any filmmaker starting out now, including and perhaps especially women, is that you can make a film very cheaply. Most women are still poorer than most men in their social class or ethnic group and in the past this created a double disadvantage. But a mobile phone, a borrowed camcorder, in fact any piece of equipment can be used and used and used to develop the necessary fluency with the medium. What counts in the end is practice.

For women the most important decision is often a deep and interior one: to give up being a victim now and forever. Don’t wait for ‘support’…it may not come in the form you long for. Instead try to remember that as a woman you hold up half the sky and that the world of imagination comes free of charge, is infinite and is yours.

Welcome to HipCinema Labs. This is the educational wing of Harmony Image Productions, Inc. Our goal is to provide filmmakers with the practical tools necessary to complete short or long format projects.  We offer small intimate classes year round where artists and filmmakers can share knowledge and create community.