Dean D'Agati (dotcom)

First off, no, I’m not actually in the UK. But yesterday, I received one of the coolest Facebook messages ever to pop up in my inbox. Anika, a girl from London, England wrote to me saying that in her search for information on NYU’s Film School she came across deandagati.com and loved it. Needless to say, I’m flattered, because sometimes I find it hard to believe that even my best friends want to come on this website (oh, hey, thanks guys, btw). Anyway, Anika asked me for some for some advice about Tisch and told me that she can help me increase hits from the UK. Well Anika, I don’t actually have any other hits from the UK so you’ve already done a lot, and thanks again for the message.

PS. Stickers are in!

dean Text anika, blog, england, film, london, thanks, tisch, uk

I’ve previously discussed my disapproval of Leno stealing The Tonight Show back from Conan, so I havent been watching it anymore, but recently The Tonight Show partnered with NYU for Jay Leno’s Short Film contest. It basically involved making a 90 second or less short film in an extremely short period of time with some crappy little Flip camera. No professional equipment.

I didn’t actually know about this contest and therefore didn’t enter, but other kids did (apparently) and the top 3 films were not only shown on The Tonight Show last Wednesday (been meaning to post this for like a week…), but their creators were flown to LA so that they could be on the show.

Sick? Yes. Watch:

dean Text, Videos california, film, la, leno, nbc, nyc, nyu, tonight show, tv

Whenever I check out my friends’ blogs, all I see are these amazing galleries of professional photos that make me want to sell my car to buy a DSLR, change my major and dedicate my life to photography (1, 2, 3).

While no major life chances like that will be happening to me anytime soon, I was able to go on a photo shoot over the weekend with deandagati.com “awesome people” Taylor & Maxie and see the pros at work. They also introduced me to Elia who is yet another amazing Cooper photographer who has her own blog here, and I’m happy to finally have met her (Taylor talks about you a lot, Elia).

The pictures included in this post are all from my iPhone (since I don’t own a still camera of any kind), but hopefully the legit pictures from their cameras will make their way to Facebook soon. Click the thumbnails below for full size…

dean Pictures, Text blogs, cameras, cooper city, dslr, film, florida, maxie, park, photography, pro, taylor

Above is Taylor Slingerland’s Color Slideshow Project for Photography at CCHS, and when I saw it, not only was I amazed (clearly I’m a sucker for photography), but I knew immediately that Taylor had to be this month’s awesome person.

(Yeah, I’m turning Awesome People into a monthly thing. Sling gets February.)

When Pichardo, the CTV officers and I were choosing people to enter CTV in 2008, Pichardo raved about this kid Taylor Slingerland in his TV1 class. We watched his music video project and my first response was “I don’t want this annoying sophomore in CTV.”

It took until I graduated, but that “annoying sophomore” eventually became one of my best friends.

His photography and film skills are ridiculous and I want him to come to NYU. While he did actually apply here, he also applied to 983 other schools and claims he probably won’t be coming to New York. I’m keeping my hopes up though because A.Katz and I really want him around.

For more Slingerland Photography, check out his Flickr here.

If you’re also a sucker for photography like me, check out the Color Slideshow Projects of Julie Weintraub (here) and Jon Cohen (here) because they are both awesome, as well.

One last thing is that Taylor hates nicknames, so I say we all post some creative nicknames in the comments and I’ll have a poll for the best one next week. Just for you Sling ;)

dean Text, Videos awesome people, cchs, ctv, film, Friend's Blogs & Sites, nicknames, photography, sling, talent, taylor

Today in my Hollywood Auteurs class we watched Marie Antoinette. It’s a pretty chill class because pretty much every week, we watch a movie, and then spend a little time discussing it afterward.

Today’s class started off the same way it normally does: my teacher came in late, and we watched the movie. I had never seen it before, and it was pretty good, but when it was over, my teacher turns on the lights, comes to the front of the class and says (in his heavy Italian accent): “Okay so today we are going to discuss Marie Antoinette, with the editor of the movie.”

Turns out Sarah Flack, the editor of Marie Antoinette, was sitting in the back of the room the whole time, and she told us about the experience and took questions. Sarah has edited some LEGIT movies too like Away We Go, Dan in Real Life, and Lost in Translation.

She was really nice and I’m glad she came. Her newest movie, Somewhere, comes out later this year so look out for that.

Also, NYU Tisch Film class of 2014 & CCHS class of 2010 student, Nicole Payton, and I went on a little adventure in the snow today. Sweet.

dean Pictures, Text class, editing, film, hollywood auteurs, marie antoinette, nyc, nyu, sarah flack, tisch

We are now two weeks into second semester and it’s time for my “here’s what I’m taking this semester” post that rambles on for much longer than it should. LET’S DO IT! YAY

So my original plan for this semester was to take a light course load, so that I’d have time to put in lots of hours at my new job (working as a TA in the NYU TV Studios). Problem is, I haven’t started working yet (that’s next week), but the homework is already starting to pile up.

I’m not taking a production class this semester, so unfortunately, I won’t be making any new film or tv productions until September 2010.

Here’s what I’m taking:

Writing The Short Screenplay (Writing Credit): This class is pretty much exactly like the Screenplay class I took last semester. It just focuses on writing short scripts that we can produce in later advanced production classes. I’m taking the same teacher I took last semester because, like she admitted on the first day, tears us apart when we write, but gives everybody A’s.

Intro to 3D Animation (Craft Credit): I’ve only been to this class once so far, but it is already beyond me. It’s really, really cool, but we use suchhh a complex program. It’s called Autodesk Maya, it costs several thousand dollars and it’s what they used for Avatar. My teacher is good but he sometimes forgets to tell us the shortcuts that he’s using which makes his directions difficult to follow. I like him though. He’s nice and understanding of the fact that we’ve never used this program before and have no idea what the difference between “grouping” and “parenting” is. Our homework on the first class was to make a 3D solar system in which the planets and moons can all rotate independently but also revolve around the sun. Here’s mine:

Hollywood Auteurs (History & Criticism Credit): Out of all the history & crit classes, I’ve heard that this one is the best. We literally just go in once a week, watch a movie, talk about it for a little bit and ditch. No homework. No papers. Pure awesome.

New York City Social History (GenEd Credit): This class. This is the class that’s going to kill me this semester. We are required to take a certain amount of GenEd classes that don’t relate to your major, so I picked this one because it sounded somewhat interesting, which it is, it’s just so much work. We have millions of pages of reading to do every week and then we have a discussion recitation class in which we have to talk about it in small groups…. not to mention submit a summary on Blackboard online… and write papers… and take tests. Sweet.

All in all, it’s really not a lot of class, but once I start my job my free time to do homework isn’t going to be as readily available as it is now. Still, I think it’s going to be a good semester.

Let’s do a poll!

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dean Pictures, Polls, Text animation, film, history, movies, nyc, nyu, school, script, second, semester, tisch, writing

If you are a frequent reader of my blog, you know that pretty much this entire semester has revolved around this one studio project. Well, We’ll Be Right Back starring Ryan Patrick O’Neil and Ali Stover is finally done and online for your viewing enjoyment:
http://deandagati.com/nyu/tv-final-project-well-be-right-back/

Also, I posted some behind the scenes footage of the shoot on my Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1241996645440

Special thanks to my actors and crew for a job well done!!

Let me know what you think.

dean Pictures, Text, Videos film, final, nyc, nyu, project, sight and sound studio, studio, tisch, tv, we'll be right back

HELLO.

I’ve been completely overwhelmed with work this week, so I’ve gotten a little behind on my blogging. Lot’s to talk about.

First of all!
Today I shot my final studio project for Sight & Sound: Studio. It actually went really well. This project is different than the ones I’ve done so far because we can actually touch it up later in Final Cut Pro, as opposed to all live-editing, so it’l be a while before this project is posted online. This project is also different because I actually got to write it. It’s really the first project so far at NYU that I’ve been able to write, direct (pictured above), and edit. When we do final projects, we shoot four a day, and each director gets 2 hours in the studio. That means we are in the studio, working, from 8am until 5:30pm with only one 30-minute break for lunch. They’re insane days, but I’m officially done for the semester which is sickkkkk.

Second of all!
During the shoot today, while I was escorting my actors from the lobby of the Tisch building to the 12th floor where the studios are, I just so happened to run into Spike Lee. Despite the wording of that last sentence, I don’t actually know Spike Lee, nor did I talk to him today, but apparently he has an office at Tisch and comes by from time to time, of course wearing what I like to call, “the Spike Lee Yankees hat” (pictured below).
(unfortunately I did not take this picture…)

Third of all!
Yesterday I get a call from Brittany Mullen (aka Nicole Patrick) telling me she’s in New York City performing at Webster Hall. While I didn’t get to make it to the show (thanks to that studio project), I did meet up with her at Webster earlier in the day while they were setting up. For anybody who doesn’t know, Webster Hall is LEGIT. It’s no Cooper City High School auditorium. In fact, Joshua Radin is performing there tomorrow night, so it was really cool to be able to stop by and hang out with B-Mul for a little bit. (She’s makin it big, yo)

That’s the haps from NYC.
(what?)
I’m coming home this Saturday for 9 days!

dean Pictures, Text film, nicole patrick, nyc, nyu, project, shoot, spike lee, studio, tisch, webster hall

If you haven’t noticed, deandagati.com has been offline for the past week or so.
Why?
For my Expanding Cinema class, our mid-term is basically to do anything we want as long as it relates to new media (awesome, right?). So I decided that for my project, I’d update my website with new video pages and a new design. I thought it’d be an easy A. It turns out, it was insanely difficult and made me 100% sure that I never want to be a professional web designer.

NEVER THE LESS…
deandagati.com is now the place to go not only to read about my boring everyday life, but now you can watch videos… lots of videos… and let’s face it, video > reading.

Check out the new “WATCH” section by clicking on “ctv” “nyu” or “originals” along the top of the page and let me know what you think!

Cool new stuff is coming to the blog too, like a new recurring blog post called “AWESOME PEOPLE.”
Stay tuned.

PS. My latest NYU project has been posted on the new “nyu” page!

dean Pictures, Text awesome people, blog, ctv, film, nyc, nyu, tisch, vengeance, video

Hey anybody remember those films that I made during summer that I promised I’d post like three months ago? Well yeah, they’re online now. Click the new button on the top of the page that looks a little something like this:

Check out those other links. They’ve been updated, too.

PS. Quicklink: deandagati.com/nyufilms

dean Text, Videos film, nyc, nyu, summer, tisch