The "In" Place to Be

by Joyce

Since all of yinz guys ain't from Pittsburgh n'at, you may not know it's a really happening place right now. No, really. It is.

A lot of movies have been filmed in Pittsburgh: Night of the Living Dead, Hoffa, Sudden Death, Striking Distance, Silence of the Lambs, Wonder Boys. (There's a really exhaustive list on Wikipedia. Way more than I knew about!) Some members of the police department where I used to work played the SWAT team in Silence of the Lambs. That SWAT guy crashing through the window was our lieutenant. They filmed a lot of the movie in our township, too.

None of these movies, however, have garnished the kind of attention as our latest claim to fame. In case you haven't heard, they're filming the next Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises here. There's a lot of coverage in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, if you want to check it out. There's even a Twitter hashtag to follow: #batburgh.

One of the things I find really fascinating is that in the midst of our 90 degree plus heat wave, they've been filming winter scenes. On two of the hottest days of the year they filmed a fight scene on the steps of the Mellon Institute at Carnegie Mellon University and a Gotham City football game at Heinz Field, promptly overtaken by the bad guys. People had to wear winter coats which they promptly stripped off as soon as the cameras stopped rolling. I don't know about you, but thirty seconds in a winter coat in the kind of weather we've been having would have given me heat stroke.

It was just announced yesterday that the Jack Reacher movie will be filmed here, too. Yeah. Tom Cruise. Don't get me started on that one.

And for really geeky people (like me) who watch a lot of PBS (except for the British shows--they put me to sleep), the Antiques Roadshow will be in town this weekend. And I'll be there! A couple of months ago, the local PBS station, WQED, asked for volunteers for the Roadshow. I put in an application, was interviewed, and got the gig. I have to go to training from 4-6 on Friday, then I'll be at the convention center from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm on Saturday. I have no idea what I'll be doing yet--I'll find out on Friday. It'll probably have something to do with corralling about 3000 people, each with two items to be appraised. If you're on Twitter, follow @RoadshowPBS on Saturday. Sometimes they do live tweets.

If I live to tell about, expect a report on my adventure in two weeks. If I'm lucky, one of the two items I'm taking with me will be worth more than $1.98.

MAKING THE MOVIES

by Gina Sestak

Well, I did it again. I signed up for another labor-intensive class at Pittsburgh FIlmmakers. Keep in mind that I'm still striving to get my regular fiction published, not to mention recovering from recent surgery, holding a job, and taking a few other short classes for fun. A rational person would focus on polishing all those manuscripts and stories cluttering up my house, or on locating an agent. Instead, at the age of 59, I'm studying screenwriting. You can go into any bookstore and see the huge number of novels that are published every year. Compare that to the much smaller number of movies made and the even smaller number that actually get distributed. I have to be nuts.

Making movies is a different world. When we write novels, we are on our own, sitting alone in front of a keyboard and a screen, creating stories out of nothing. In contrast, it takes a village to make a movie - dozens if not hundreds of creative people acting, directing, dressing sets, designing costumes, operating cameras, recording sound, editing, etc., etc., not to mention financing the production, scouting locations, feeding the cast and crew, etc., etc. Instead of having to convince one agent or editor to accept your work, you have to hope to excite a multitude!

For anyone who is unfamiliar with Pittsburgh Filmmakers, I recommend a visit. The very building itself manages to convey an atmosphere of technical proficiency and creativity combined. Just being there is stimulating. And the classes are hard, with weekly assignments and in-class critiques -- not for the weak of heart.

Last fall I studied Introduction to Screenwriting, which required writing a short script every week, to be read aloud and critiqued in class. The following semester I took two core classes: Introduction to Digital -- yes, I am technologically challenged, but I learned to use Photoshop and Final Cut Express to make posters and short films -- and Motion Picture Fundamentals, in which i created or collaborated on several short films, including writing, filming and editing.

The biggest thrill, though, was when I story-boarded an idea that was made into a short film by an enthusiastic group of classmates.

This term, I'm taking a more advanced screenwriting class, Script Development, from which I hope to emerge with a competed screenplay. Please wish me luck.

MAKING MOVIES

by Gina Sestak


I've always liked movies. Ever since I was a little kid. I like to watch, but even more, I like to know about how they are made.



You may remember that one of the first posts I wrote for this blog [way back on September 23, 2006] concerned my glamorous job as a movie extra in George Romero's Dawn of the Dead.
I call it glamorous because my make-up was professionally desitned and applied -


so what if it was matte gray skin and red eye shadow! It looked cool.
A few years later, I was an extra in an even weirder movie -
Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh.


So what's that got to do with writing? you may ask.

I'll tell you.

This semester, I've been taking a screenwriting course at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. After years of being a highly unsuccessful fiction writer, I've decided to broaden my horizons. Henceforth, I plan to be an unsuccessful screenwriter as well!