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At some point while screening my scenes at the final film directing class on Wednesday night, I heard a tremendous boom coming from the outside world.

Oh, great, I thought as I sat in the dark with my classmates, that’s God telling me how much He hates my movie!

Naturally, it was thunder making all that racket, but I have tendency to overreact.

After 8 weeks we finally got to show our work at the School of Visual Arts. I can’t believe how fast the time went by. I met a bunch of great, talented people, had a lot of fun, and I learned so much about filmmaking. I’d say I got a great return on my investment.

Wednesday was rather hectic and to top it off, it was my mother’s birthday, which happens to be Assumption Day, when the Virgin Mary was taken up to Heaven. My mother’s middle name was “Assumpta.”

I thought of my mom a lot during the day and, as I wrote on my Facebook page, my mother gave us her heart and soul, but the toughest thing she ever asked us to do was to go on living without her.

I made sure to go to mass at Trinity and receive Communion. Rev. Emily—yes, all you Catholics out there, Rev. Emily—gave a lovely sermon and when I told her it was my mother’s birthday, she said she’d pray for her.

I was tempted not to show my footage at the film class because I was so unhappy with my editing, but my mother didn’t raise me to be a quitter. I handed over my flash drive to my instructor and shared my work.

And…it wasn’t so bad. Except for a couple of rough cuts and some shaky camerawork, it came out pretty well.

Todd, our teacher, warned us that he is very critical when it comes to editing.

“How bad do you want it?” he asked me.

“Bring it on,” I said. “I’m Catholic. I can take anything.”

Todd told me my first scene was too ping-pongy. I shifted from one actor to the other
after every line.

Visually, it was a bit boring.

Point taken. I could’ve been a little more creative with that clip. However, he liked the second one a lot better, which is interesting because the actual shoot was a nightmare. But then I've heard that many great meals have come out of kitchen disasters.

My fellow students were all very supportive and they showed some fine work as well. It’s incredible: you put some much time and effort into shooting a scene and the finished product is only a few minutes long.

Todd encouraged us to stick with filmmaking, to keep shooting short films so we get used to doing it.

I’m going to take some time and figure out my next move. Meanwhile I want to thank Todd and all those great people in the class for such a wonderful experience.

Oh, and that big boom I heard during my screening? I’ve decided that wasn’t God giving me a thumbs down. That was my mom up in Heaven cheering me on.

(I’m going to be taking a little break from blogging, so if you don’t hear from me for a while, not to worry. I’ll be back online as soon as I can.)