That one time they killed me on exchange

Okay, my intent was not freaking you out, I promise. But I did, kind of, die on exchange. It was for a class and it was actually fun, but it did happen, so I did not lie. Casablanca was the film class, the one for which we had to create stories, bring clips together and deliver messages through them.

Our first assignment was to create a black and white thirty seconds video without audio. At first, my team-members and I thought that it was going to be impossible to do it, but then we brainstormed some ideas until we found the one we all liked.

We managed to have different scenes within those thirty seconds. In the first shot, we can see one of my team-mates, who was playing the crazy wife, looking out the window and realizing that the police was outside the house. Then in the next scene, we show the knife covered in blood she had in her hand, and right after there was me on the floor in a bloody mess. I cannot really remember if she gets away with murder or not, but it was really fun to shoot.

The other assignment we had was to create a two minutes film without restrictions of any kind, and we pretty much had this idea of doing a zombie movie, and guess who was the zombie? I was. I guess my classmates enjoyed killing me every now and then. Lol. Anyways this one was even funnier to shoot as we went to a public park in the city on school hours and shot. It was probably even the only place where I was comfortable with makeup on and with having to make noises "as zombies do" while they walk.

In this movie, we sent the message that even if a zombie looks scary, he can be a "person" with a big heart. In fact, I helped a fellow zombie to cross the street, I was basically a traffic policeman. Yes, zombies apparently have lives too.

I am not sure if the bloopers still exist because one of my classmates had them and she never sent them over, but I still have some pictures I can share with you so you get an idea of what it is like to be in a student's film. If you get the chance to take one of these classes or if you get asked by a student to be an extra for their movie, do it. It is fun and you get to meet new people.

- Cristian

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