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Sean Duffy
262747
Part 1: Biography
Sometimes self-doubt get the best of me and I start telling myself that I will
never be a great artist because I’ve lived too privileged of a life. I grew up in the
clean, quiet, always green suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri. My parents, still married,
have always brought in considerable income from their business jobs. I’m going to
my dream college to study filmmaking. Who am I to think I have something to say?
I’ve always been an introvert and an idealist, or as I was labeled by my
teachers at an early age, “too shy” and “too distracted”. I was always writing stories,
but my handwriting was awful. I loved to read but read too slow. I spent too much
time watching movies and playing video games and not enough outside. I was a nice
boy, yes, but I wasn’t normal. So I started getting taken out of class to go through
things like physical therapy, speech therapy, and occupational therapy. It was
miserable, but I wanted to be normal. So I accepted it.
Fast forward to high school. I was an honors student, highly involved in
theatre, and had lots of friends. Was I cured of my abnormality? No. I embraced it; I
got self-respect. So I started raising my hand in class. Not to just get points, but
because I wanted to others to hear what I had to say. The same goes for why I got on
stage, started making films, and became more social.
Pain alone doesn’t need to drive art; the passion of self-expression is much
stronger. I see things that others don’t see, and the best way to show them is
through a story. And to me, the modern medium to do so is in film.
Sean Duffy
262747
Part 2: Essay
Unlike an orgasm, the genesis of a great idea rarely has a build to it. It comes
without warning and it comes without explanation. And like where so many come in
college, the most important idea I had during my first semester at Columbia came in
the shower; I had figured out the idea for my final and most important film project
of the semester. My film was going to be the story of a young man who, decked out
in a cape bearing his nickname “Scoots”, goggles, and his trusty stead of a push
scooter, goes on a wild quest for love. The film starts with Scoots in a coffee shop,
sipping his latte alone and feeling down. But from the window he sees a beautiful
girl outside getting on her bike. Scoots is smitten. The girl rides off and Scoots goes
on a long and comedic chase after her. But right when he finally catches up to her at
her apartment, she is greeted by her boyfriend, and Scoots’ heart is broken. As
Scoots gives up on love and waits for the bus, a girl on roller skates rides by and
almost trips on his scooter laying on the sidewalk. Scoots saves the girl just in time,
who also happens to be wearing goggles and a cape, but with the name “Roller”.
With one look, the two fall in love and walk off into the sunset. And so, Scoots was
born, weighing in at 200 feet of film, thirty pounds of equipment, and an
immeasurable amount of creative ecstasy that would be the culmination of
everything I learned about the medium up to that point.
There’s a fine line between being a control freak and being creatively
assertive, and it’s a line that I often balance between. Perhaps thoroughly figuring
out an idea for a project before even being assigned into groups for it would be
considered behavior of the former, but this was the most important project of the
semester and my chance to really stand out amongst my peers; if I wanted it be as
incredible as possible, I had to have the power to make it so. Luckily, my three group
members turned out to be pretty much clueless on what we should do for the film,
and when I pitched them Scoots they were happy enough that they had to do less
work that they agreed immediately on the idea. While the conception process was
over, the bulk of the pre-production logistics for the film were due the next week.
These logistics included information on locations, actors, costumes, storyboards,
and more. We all agreed that we should split the work. So I divided up the work
“evenly”; that is, about 10% to the producer, 10% to our cinematographer, and the
remaining 80% to me. Our sound designer also had a 10%, but he forgot to do it, so I
had to last minute. It’s not that I didn’t trust my group to do the work; it’s just that I
trusted myself to do it a lot better. I had done similar work for theatre productions
in high school, and in much greater volume, so I knew what I was doing. Time on set
was going to be limited, and I had to make sure we weren’t going to waste a second
of it over details that we could have figured out way in advance. And when the next
class came, every group met with our instructor in his office to green light their
production. The group before us was in there for an hour; we came in, handed him a
neatly organized binder, and were out within five minutes.
But even the best of planning can’t prevent every problem. The first of two
days of filming we shot at a pastry shop my friend Bailey worked at. The shop would
be closed by two o’clock, which was the time we were getting there. However, it was
mid-November, and the sun was starting to set as early as five. That meant we only
had about three hours to set up and get all eight shots. With all our pre-planning, I
thought we would be fine. I was wrong.
First, we ran late because we had to wait for another group to return the
camera to us. I let them borrow it because theirs broke and they didn’t have time to
rent a new one; my heart got in the way of my head and I immediately regretted the
decision. But I had given us more than enough time in the schedule to get to the
location that we weren’t more than five minutes late. Second, one of our lights, the
one we planned on using the most, didn’t work. My crew quickly figured out a
solution by diffusing a different light to match the broken light’s brightness. Third,
the group that borrowed the camera forgot one of the film spools, and we had to
wait twenty minutes for them to return it before we could even load the camera up.
By the time we were completely set up for the first shot, it was around two-thirty.
But once we started filming, things went smoothly.
While I may not have trusted my crew so much in the pre-production
process, this was where we all truly came together. Our producer, Jenkins, and
sound designer, Dakota, quickly and safely moved furniture and our lights as
needed, as well as helping solve any problems that arose and giving input on how to
best get a shot. But it was our cinematographer, Grant, who really shined that day.
The shots we had planned out weren’t always easy to get in the cramped and small
space we were shooting in, but Grant would always figure something out, putting
himself in whatever uncomfortable position to get a shot. With my crew at work, I
was able to focus on working with the actors, keeping things on track, and making
sure my vision was being met. We finished the last shot right as the sun was starting
to set, packed up our gear, and left the location in the same condition that we found
it. Day one, even with our setbacks, was a success.
Day two was longer, spanning from around noon to five. This time we were
shooting around my friend Bailey’s neighborhood in Bucktown. We didn’t have any
real setbacks to work around, so we had the time to get every shot right, try out
different ideas, and have a whole lot of fun while doing it. To me, filmmaking is
always best outside; it feels more natural when you’re capturing fictional characters
living in a very active real world. We ended day two early, energized, and with
incredible excitement to see how the developed film would look.
A week after we finished shooting and turned in our film, we came back from
Thanksgiving break and I picked up the processed footage. I’m an idealist, so things
usually don’t turn out as I had planned, and I’m disappointed. But our footage
looked good, and I quickly edited a rough cut within a few hours. But the film still
needed one vital component: sound. While the film had no dialogue, we still had to
create a soundscape and a musical score, so my sound designer Dakota and I spent
eight hours one night doing so. We had recorded no sound on-set, so we either
pulled sounds from online databases, or recorded them ourselves. After we figured
out all our sounds, Dakota broke out his midi-keyboard and we created a simple, but
distinct score using GarageBand. Dakota would watch a few seconds of the film, play
a melody, and I’d give him feedback. Slowly but surely, we made our way through
the three-minute film doing so. The added effect of the sound and music brought an
extra layer of personality to the film that I had never thought we’d achieve. Dakota
drove me home as the sun was just rising and I felt like I was starting to become
strong enough of an artist to be worthy of a city as majestic as Chicago.
The last day of class came and we were ready to show the final cut of Scoots.
Our class and another would screen our combined eight films and then vote on one
from each class to send off to be judged for the Take-One Festival, a film festival run
by Columbia that showcases freshman film projects. With as much modesty as my
ego allows, Scoots destroyed the other films. Not only was it clear that we had put in
more effort that any of the other films, but we also had the one that was most
cohesive, error-free, original, and one of only two that didn’t have murder as a major
plot-device. Scoots won the vote and was sent to the Take-One jury. I won’t know if
we got in till February, but I have high hopes that Scoots will not only get in, but
place highly as well, giving me a chance to be showcased in front of staff and other
students, and cast off any self-doubt that this isn’t the job I’m supposed to have.
Columbia’s Film & Video program is the largest in the country, and the
most common major amongst the students here. There’s a lot of people and a lot of
competition, so how can you stand out? Many of my peers think their senior year
will finally be their time to shine, but I disagree. No one’s going to make a Citizen
Kane of a short film here, but why try and do anything less? Taking that approach
with Scoots turned a simple idea I had in the shower become a film that showcases
my ambition, ability, and originality as a filmmaker. Every class, every project, and
every idea I have at Columbia is an opportunity for greatness. You’ve got to hone
your craft over time. You can’t expect it to come randomly and without work.
You’ve got to orgasm.