Anthony Castelluci Demo Reel and Full Sail Post Mortem

Here is my final project at Full Sail Digital Cinematography Bachelor's of Science program. I ended up with a 3.61 GPA. And I can see why the program tends to have about a 95% drop out rate. All those A's and A+'s I got early on really saved my GPA from falling below 3.5.

One of the reasons the program is so challenging is that the last two Project & Portfolio classes are brutal. Some people get frustrated and quit. Of course this is something you should never do if you really want something.

Of course the reason why the last two portfolio classes are so tough, is that they want you to create professional looking work. And there are 2 huge reasons they are hard on people and make them create professional work. One, is that they want to make sure you graduate with a skill set and a demo reel that will get you work. And of course the other is that Full Sail needs to keep high standards.

The school is associated with horror stories of droves of graduates who never took advantage of the time it takes to earn a Bachelor's of Science on-line. It takes 29 months. And, I saw some people not take advantage of this time and goof around and not put much effort into their work.

Some people burn out. But, the biggest issue with people who do not prosper after graduating Full Sail is that they never put in the time to develop the professional habits it takes to succeed in the Digital Cinematography field.

There is something called the 10,000 hours rule. And that means that you've worked hard to master something. And specifically you've totaled about 10,000 hours of work by the time you show real signs of mastery.

One of the best pieces of advice one of my instructors gave me was, "Get that camera in your hands every day.". And what this does is it allows you to experience the axiom, "repetition is the mother of mastery.". For instance, I do so many things by habit now when I set up a shoot, that I used to have to think very hard about 29 months ago. And, I even considered creating a checklist and laminating it and taping to the inside of my SUV after I arrived at a shoot location and realized I had forgot the SD card I needed to record on.

Another thing I did was to be fearless and think outside the box. The tech-package that comes with the on-line education included a Sony FS5 and a very nice 18-110mm eMount lens. It's a great workhorse of a lens. But, one of the issues with it is that it makes camera racking almost impossible because of all the electronics in the lens itself. (Camera racking is the cinematic art of changing the depth of field manually to allow you to control where the audience's eye focuses on.). Also, you can get very nice bokeh with manually lenses. Bokeh a Japanese word that means flower. And it relates to those out of focus lights you see in the background on professional productions.

My solution was buying some old vintage glass from the 80's SLR cameras. There are manual lenses and you have to dial the aperture yourself on the lens ring. And there was a guy who was a bit of a technical geek who went round and round with me on how this would not work.

Well, my demo reel looks professional at the end of the program. And well, I hate to say it, but his looks as if it could have been shot on a smart phone. He took no chances. And he did not seem to delve into the deep artistry that is one of the goals of cinematography. So, all that to say this, if you have an idea, and you know in your gut you are right, do not do what I did and run it by someone who doesn't share your vision. Just do it! And if you fail, well, you can try again. But, I succeeded with pairing vintage lenses to a modern digital cinema camera. As far as I know, there are not too many other people who are shooting this way.

Please use my story to inspire you to reach new heights and achieve your goals.