Lenovo Seize The Night - Bronze

First, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who supports the site and the work I've done as a filmmaker. The amount of people who helped me during the Lenovo contest was absolutely overwhelming. Frankly, I've been in numerous view based competitions and it's hard to sustain your film's presence without annoying your virtual community base. There is only so many times you can tweet, post, or message a person with your film before they just don't respond.

Still, the backing I received from Alabama alumni, friends, acquaintances, and film fanatics was astounding. It's amazing feeling when you know people who've seen your work enthusiastically support simply because they believe in you. That's true gratification.

We ended up receiving some great features on other sites as well!

The F-Stoppers feature was huge! Without their support we wouldn't have even placed.

Filmmaking.net also took out the time to feature us on a more educational note. 

Of course I had to mention the competition as a part of my guest post series on The Nu Black

The biggest push definitely came from twitter though. Well known tech master Thomas Clifford was a huge help along with many current undergraduate University of Alabama students. It was a huge effort and I'm happy people willingly supported. 

Unfortunately, we came in 3rd place at the end of the competition. Third place stills nets us a substantial prize, but nothing compares to the $15,000 the first place winners Critical Mass received. I still count this a blessing nonetheless. I was given the privilege to direct a great commercial/film for a well-known company, and work with some of the best film production students in the South. If you haven't seen the Lenovo video check it out now. 

Being a graduate student at USC's film program has not been easy. At this point I'm positive our schedule is set up chaotically to test our endurance as filmmakers and individuals in general. It hasn't been easy, but I've learned you have to sacrifice (especially sleep) to achieve. This will not change! 

Be on the lookout for more updates on films I've worked on soon. Till then be sure to follow us on twitter @QueTheLights! 

FStoppers Behind The Scenes Contest: Broken Reality

Photography by Kevyn Bryant of K. Bryant Photography

It's been an unbelievably eventful day. A plethora of pure awesomeness has made me once again realize how much I love being a filmmaker. 

This is a behind the scenes video for the 2011 FStoppers video contest. I directed and shot the video while Doug D. did the edit. 

Photographer, Kevyn Bryant, decided to make a set of photos dedicated to the memory of the devastation that hit Tuscaloosa, Alabama on April 27, 2011. 

Kevyn and I both were in Tuscaloosa when the tornado hit. The tornado bypassed us, but hurt many other people. It also destroyed hundred of homes in the Tuscaloosa area. 

Our FStoppers challenge then became the best way to convey the devastation Tuscaloosa endured in a creative and powerful manner. 

We put our heads together to figure out what theme would best suite this assignment. We decided on Broken Reality. In Tuscaloosa, there is a new normal. People have gone back to their regular routines, but all around us we can still see the ramifications of the tornado. Many individuals live in an encampment of disillusion and disbelief. You never think the tornado will hit you, until it hits you. 

Once we figured out the theme and how we would go about making it, we needed three things. 

-A first location to use for HDR images

-A second location to shoot our model

-A model (duh)

I knew a house near the main intersection of Tuscaloosa. It was on a field where hundreds of houses use to sit before the tornado hit. By this time, the majority of the houses had been plowed down, but this specific house still stood. 

I used it on a short film I shot recently, and I suggested we use it again for the HDR images. After we finished up at the house we needed to find another location to shoot the model we would use. Kevyn contacted Rae Marshall, a photographer and artistic model we knew at school, and I talked my friend, Sarah, into letting use use her apartment to shoot Rae. 

We put this all together over the span of two weeks. We finished all of the main grunt work in Tuscaloosa, and shot our behind the scenes interview in Montgomery, Alabama (Kevyn and my girlfriend live down there and her birthday was coming up, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone. Yes, I'm terrible). 

Once we gathered all the footage I stored everything on my Laci Harddrive and took it to my editor, Doug D., along with an outline of what we wanted. 

Four days later, we had a finished product. Best of all, we were featured on FStoppers main page after submitting our video. 

To see the feature click HERE. 

Along with this awesome news I found out Que The Lights was The Black Weblog Award's Judges Choice for Best Video Blog and Best Photography in a Blog. 

This has been an amazing day. I hope yours was just as memorable.