Sean Duffy

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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

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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.