My Last Blog - Thanks Readers!

May 10, 2009

Hey Readers!

This is my last blog of the year! I can’t believe that summer break is here already! As I empty out my room here in Cook Hall I feel like time just flew by! It seems like just yesterday that I was moving in to the dorm and settling in before heading off on the LJ experience!! I came to Cornerstone this year as a Junior transfer and I leave tomorrow morning as a Senior! Tomorrow at 7:45am I have my last exam and then I come back to my room to check out of the hall. I won’t be gone from campus for long though because I have a meeting for my summer course later in the afternoon!

This semester may be over but my summer education is just beginning! Starting Monday morning I am auditing a course called, Film Industry Intensive Experience! Sounds cool eh?! The course is more like a trip with 4 days of classroom instruction (2 before, 2 after) and 7 days of amazing opportunity and experience in Los Angeles!! I am going to have the chance to meet and chat with several very successful film industry professionals and tour the back lots of some of the major studios in Hollywood…I must admit though I am most excited about spending one of the days at Disneyland! I have never been there before!!

I have never been to California before so I am really looking forward to experiencing Hollywood for the first time.

This summer my family is also busy searching for our new house! While my home used to be 3 hours north (40 minutes from the UP) now my sister and I will be able to commute to school next semester! My Dad got a new job in Grand Rapids so now my family is living down here! SO much change as happened in one semester and all of it has truly been a blessing from God. I can’t wait to see what the rest of this summer brings and what God has planned for next fall!!

Thank you for reading my blog and following my first year here at Cornerstone!

Have a safe and blessed summer!

Cheers!

Let's make movies!

Apr 23, 2009

Hey Everyone!

What a week I am already having!!!!

On Monday my totally amazing and awesome crew for Video Production 1 shot the footage for our final project. Our film is like a suspense/thriller. It is creepy but not over the top. At 11:30am we met up in CAMS to pick up our equipment and get it all loaded into our Director, Ryan’s, van. You truly never realize just how much gear goes into a film shoot until you try and get it packed up!

The weather at the start of the day was kind of disheartening because we wanted to put a light outside and shine it into a second floor window to make the overcast, rainy day look like bright daylight. Fortunately, by the time we were all set to shoot the rain stopped and we were able to use the light!!  What a difference prayer makes!!

Our actress, Megan, was absolutely wonderful! The whole group felt totally blessed to have her in our film and she did an excellent job!!

It is very easy to get frustrated and upset on a film shoot because everyone is trying so hard to get things just right and put in their creative ideas. Thankfully, everyone on the crew worked extremely well together and there were no arguments or creative clashes. I couldn’t have asked for a better set environment or a better team.

Three of my team members are freshman, 1 of the three is my sister, and I am so proud and excited by all their abilities. For most of them this is their first experience with such large roles on a film shoot. I was completely blown away by their work on set. They acted like complete professionals and their positive, “can-do” attitudes made the set a great place to work. People helped out wherever they were needed and stepped into positions of extra responsibility when needed. Our Editor, Josh, stepped in to play an essential part in the film, emptied and refilled a refrigerator several times (approx. 3) and served as a terrific Production Assistant. Now he is busy editing the whole film together while our Director of Photography, Drew, is busy working on the soundtrack for the film. My sister was the Gaffer (lead electrician) and jumped back and forth from adjusting lights and operating the boom microphone. She was running around like crazy and did a great job making night time look like mid-day!

Around 9:30-10pm we called break for dinner. We had all been snacking on sodas,  m&m’s and chips all day so it was good that we took a break for a meal. It was really nice getting everyone to sit down take and break and just refresh instead of trying to battle the exhaustion and hunger that we were all starting to feel. After dinner we got right back to work and finished up the needed shots.

By the time we finished filming it was about 2:00am!!

By the time Jenna and I got to bed it was about 3am!! 3.75 hours later…..I woke up and went to my 8:30am class!! Crazy, I know but this is the life of Cornerstone film student!!

That's a wrap for this blog!

Cheers!

Ice Cream and Trash Can Fires!!!

Apr 22, 2009

Hey Everyone

Things have been totally crazy with classes right now as term projects, papers and tests have filled the spaces of my calendar. So many things need to be accomplished before my first year here at Cornerstone is completed. Thankfully, I was able to schedule in some time to hang out with my amazing Cook sisters of C1W today.

At 4:15, after a long week of classes, those who were free met in the hallway and headed to Jersey Junction, a really quaint ice cream parlour in East Grand Rapids. Everyone got their ice cream and we ate on the front porch talking and catching up on what everyone has been up to. I had been to Jersey Junction before with my LJ group so I already knew what flavor I wanted -; key lime pie!! Yum yum!! I also got a half scoop of lemon which was also extremely delicious and perfect for the weather. My suitemate Raya and a couple of other girls got bright coloured ice cream that made their teeth and tongues bright blue! It was pretty funny!

Jenna with the ice cream

Raya with her ice cream

Liz and Caley with their ice cream

As we were all sitting on the porch enjoying our various flavours of ice cream we suddenly noticed that one of the trash cans on the street was smoking!! At first we weren't quite sure what was going on but then we started seeing flames and lots of smoke. Some of the girls went into the restaurant and let the employees know while a couple of waitresses brought out pitchers of water to extinguish the flames that were growing bigger. A guy brought out a fire extinguisher just to make sure that the fire was out. The police arrived and were later followed by a fire truck that took the seriously melted trash can for evidence or something like that. None of us had seen anyone put anything in the trash can but we had noticed some kids standing around looking at the can and laughing before anything happened so we all thought that maybe they had something to do with it. It was truly an exciting thing to witness!

After we all finished our ice cream we walked around the small down town area and took pictures. A couple of us threw pennies into the wishing fountain and then we headed down to the waterfront park for more pictures and conversation.

It was really nice being able to get off campus with everyone and unwind after such a busy week and before a long weekend of homework….which I probably should get started on right now!!

Cheers!

Dancing with the Sections

Mar 3, 2009

(written February 27)

Hey Everyone

Today was definitely a rainy day! As I walked back from work, I called my sister and couldn’t stop laughing because I forgot my umbrella and was getting completely soaked! By the time I got back to my room it looked like I had jumped into the pond on campus!

Tonight was the 3^rd annual Cook/Van Osdel Dancing with the Sections!! Every section of both halls selected a song and choreographed a number with costumes, props, and some pretty good lip-syncing! The whole Corum was full of students, parents, and faculty that were there to see the show! Each section performed their number and then a panel of judges selected their winners - one from VO and one from Cook.

I didn’t dance with my section because I had been planning on being on a film set today. Plans changed last minute and I didn’t know the routine, so I cheered my section on with the other girls that couldn’t work the practices into their busy schedules. It was a lot of fun seeing all of the hard work that each section put into their routines. Everyone chose something completely different. My section chose the song Hot & Cold by Katy Perry (with some censoring of course) and wore really bright shirts and makeup. They did a really great job! I am so proud of my C1W sisters!!!

The VO section that won performed a song by the Jonas Brothers. Three of the guys played guitar hero guitars, pretending they were the Jonas brothers, while running around the audience. The rest of the section dressed like the Jonas Brothers and did the choreography. At the end of their performance they threw some roses out into the audience and Jenna, Mandi (a C1W sister) and I all caught one! 

Well, time to dry off and make a nice pot of tea!

Cheers! 

The End Of My Nashville Adventure

Feb 20, 2009

Hey Everyone

Last day in Nashville! After a great night’s sleep Jenna and I once again headed over to the Opryland Resort for our last breakfast at the little coffee shop in the Magnolia section of the resort. This time, instead of ordering the same breakfast I decided to pass up the pastry for one of the café’s huge blueberry muffins! Once again we found a new spot to sit and enjoy the ambience of the resort. After we finished our breakfast we took more fun photos!

Jenna's favorite lamp posts -- they have dragons on them!

I am a big fan of palm trees and tropical foliage. I could not get over the size of the plants!

View from the sky bridge

Jenna heading behind the waterfall

This was a window behind the waterfall

The BIGGEST waterfall in the whole resort!

There wasn’t a whole lot scheduled for the day since the convention was winding down, so Jenna and I went through the exposition hall one last time and got really cool free t-shirts! After filling our backpacks with pamphlets from all sorts of Christian media companies, we walked over to the OpryMills mall with our friend Jay who had been volunteering at the convention. The mall was absolutely huge! It was so easy to get lost! All three of us made some purchases and had a fun lunch at the Rainforest Café.

After lunch, Jenna and I headed back to Opryland because we were in the mood for some dessert. We headed back to the Haagen-Daas ice cream shop that was in the New Orleans looking shop area. We both got a scoop of both mocha chip and mint chip ice cream and was it ever delicious! We couldn’t stop talking about how good the flavor was and how lucky we felt being able to sit in such a beautiful resort eating ice cream while our classmates were back home studying!

We did study on this trip though. Since we didn’t want to just sit in our hotel room, we found another nice spot in the resort to sit on a bench and do some reading. Jenna read her book on the culture, customs and etiquette of Taiwan while I worked on my script breakdown for my Producing for Film class. Surprisingly, I actually got a lot of work accomplished while sitting in the sunlight, eating ice cream, surveying the tropical scenery and occasionally stopping to call my parents and give them an update on what we had been doing. An hour or two later Jenna and I decided to head back to our hotel to rest up and get dressed up for the closing banquet later that night.

Jenna and me -- wearing the same colors...it wasn't planned!

The Cornerstone group minus a couple of people

On our way back to the resort we caught the bus with Aubrey, Christy and Ben (who were all volunteering at the convention). Because Aubrey and Christy had been working the registration desks they had acquired several tickets to the banquet from people that weren’t able to attend. This allowed those of us who hadn’t volunteered or paid for tickets to get into the banquet!! The food was terrific! There was salad and dinner rolls for the first course; potatoes, asparagus, chicken and steak (yes, on the same plate!!!) for the main course; and for dessert there was a chocolate mousse/pudding type of cake with strawberries that was pure perfection! 

If you want to see a short video of the performance copy and paste the link below into the web address bar.

http://cross.tv/15597

After dinner, the big awards of the NRB organization were presented. The media professionals that accepted these awards had accomplished some amazing things in their careers! After the award ceremony we were all treated to an absolutely breath-taking performance by Steve Bell and Symphony. I have always been a HUGE fan of this genre of music and was completely blown away by the power and emotion that was brought out of the performance. The symphony had only seen the music for the show the night before, which was amazing considering how well prepared and precise they were. They sounded like they had been practicing for ages!!

The end of their performance brought about the end of the convention; and as we all prayed together, I really began to realize how wise of a choice I had made in deciding to come on this trip. During this whole amazing experience I was inspired and encouraged in so many ways that I cannot even describe how much of an impact the NRB convention had on my attitude and mindset. I can’t wait until next year’s convention!!!

The next day we all headed home bringing our new found knowledge, renewed spirits, and strengthened friendships with us!

Cheers!