Pursuing Passion: Two Dancers Make a Movie

PURSUING PASSION

A 5-minute documentary on the dance teachers at my dance studio, Bamachol Dance Program, and how they each studied for a specific career in college but left it all to continue their passion for dance as a teacher. 

Day 4 Hurricane Nicole decided she wanted to come hit Florida exactly on the day we wanted to start filming... kinda inconsiderate if you ask me. Our schedule got pushed back two days because both the school and the studio were shut down. Although we immediately did panic, we were ahead of schedule anyway so we texted our interviewees and confirmed our rescheduling. After multiple texts back and forth, and a few in-person confrontations after they ignored me, I got them all set.

DAY 5, 6, AND 7 Bamachol is in Aventura, about 45 minutes from where Vane lives but only 12 from mine. I was really proud of her! She drove on the highway for the FIRST time and did it 3 times in one week. 

me proud of vane

We shot in every room of this studio. We spent around 10 minutes in each room and went on a constant rotation every day. With our need for approval and an immense amount of combined creativity, Vane and I entered every room and asked ourselves "what is the coolest shot we can get?" And not to toot our own horn, but we absolutely killed it with the b-roll. Here are some of my favorites:

The interviews were my favorite part. These teachers have taught me dance since I was two but never would I have imagined that was not their first career path. Vane and I set up each interview and although we had the same intention for each interview, we found ourselves manipulating the questions to actually get it out of each subject. I felt so powerful. Overall, the filming went really well! Now onto editing.

DAY 8, 9, 10... and so on We finished on a Wednesday. It was time for post-production. I felt a bit guilty since I was leaving for Chicago on that Thursday, but Vane's exact words were "don't worry, I edit really fast." Two dancers, so naive, so innocent. Neither of us even thought to think of anything going wrong.
As I sit in Chicago with my boyfriend, Vane started texting me. Here is a quick summary of what we encountered.

- Videos wouldn't upload to premiere.
- Had to use her phone to edit.
- No method of sharing worked so she couldn't get the video.
- The music we wanted wouldn't work on her phone.
- Sound from the interviews was... broken?

13,79 miles away, we worked through (most) of these issues but had to sacrifice for the deadline. We both learned a lot from this project. I think our project had a lot of potential! We just made a few amateur mistakes, but that is what this class is about, right? Learning? Yeah, I hope so.

More on what I'm growing coming soon!
ms. scorsese