Meet Evan Stulberger and Norm Bergkvist, members of the StudentFilmmakers Filmmakers Network. Visit their Network profiles below to connect.
Evan Stulberger
Filmmakers Network profile: lookatevan
Projects and work: ”I mostly cut my teeth working as a cameraman and editor in local news. Most people don’t give it much credit, but the fundamentals of composition, lighting, direction, editing, and most importantly – storytelling – are tapped each day to complete a story. It’s like making a short every day you’re on the job. What more, with strict and harried deadlines you learn how to improvise and think on your feet, a great skill for any aspect of filmmaking. I worked in this capacity for the local news network News12, the syndicated Teen Kids News, and the international news network Russia Today. More recently I created a short film called Pieces of Eight, and am heavily involved in the lighting design for the production of the film Two Toms (directed by Jason Cusato) which is being filmed in Park Slope, Brooklyn.” Favorite challenge and solution on the set: ”One of my favorite aspects of filmmaking is the constant problem solving and improvisation that is needed to get the job done. For Pieces of Eight, we had an extremely limited budget for lighting (one Home Depot work light and a reflector). The shoot took place at night which further complicated things. One scene called for the couple to have a conversation in the street in front of their house. We didn’t have enough lights to make it work there so we moved the actors and used a couple of nice big soft walkway lights as the key and fill. The end product looked incredible. When people ask me what lighting equipment I used for the film I love the reaction I get when I tell them I only had a work light and a reflector.”
On editing: ”One thing I love to do when editing is lay down a piece of music I associate with the scene and use that to get a feeling for the pacing. On Pieces of Eight, I used a popular rock song that was stuck in my head for weeks. I removed the song for the final cut and the pacing was spot on with the mood of the film.”
Norm Bergkvist
Filmmakers Network profile: Framejunkee
Norm is an independent filmmaker. His interest has been in film and video for many decades. As a youth he and his kid sister created silent 8 mm shorts, recruiting other kids from school and the drama department to help out with makeup and costumes. He’d race down to the photo shop on his bike and tear off home with his raw footage just waiting to “cut, cut and cut again, tape, more tape, oops, more tape,” then at last, a film they could all get a look at… “Oh, the joy!”
Current projects: Norm is a student (once again) furthering his interest in T.V. production with 1 year left to go. He is also working in post production of his recent film Mental Health in Perspective, an 88-minute educational doc. He is also beginning to look at new projects for 2008 which will include a 30-minute documentary about teens putting their energy into artful practice and getting support from local community business and the city. While looking into the production of a T.V. series about the raw foods lifestyle, Norm says there are always other small projects that crop up throughout the year. His main focus is on the everyday heroes he meets everyday in his own community. He is already planning the next doc, lucky for him the rest of the gang are ready to get back to work as well. On HD: ”I will say this again, high def will not replace film…yet. I love shooting on high def. We use both the Panasonic DVX 100 B and the new high def 200. For most of our work SD is what our market calls for. There are times, however, where the high def is the way to go. We also shoot a lot of footage for our chill out relaxation series market. I have moved into the high def camera for this reason – you can’t beat the rich tone and resolution high def brings to the screen. That being said, dollar for dollar it is the best picture I can get for the price… All our budgets so far have been under $100,000.00. We spent under $12,000 for each of our 24-minute shorts last year. The cost would have only gone up slightly if we had shot in high def. I’m still using SD a lot and then when it calls for it I move over to the high def camera. Lucky for us, when we designed our edit computer, we made sure we could handle both the SD and HD formats. I’m glad we did. ”The price of HD is coming down, yet keep in mind, select your camera carefully. And video streaming on the web in high def is coming!”
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