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8:00 a.m.

a VASSAR COLLEGE student film
starring ALEX FERRARI
KATE WHARMBY
assistant editor & sound mixing
SETH GRANGER
camera, editing, sound, lighting & set design
ADAM McDANIEL
filmed entirely on the vassar college
campus, poughkeepsie, ny
filmed late march through
late april, 1995

WINNER

Director's Citation Award

The New Jersey Young Film & Videomakers' Festival

1996

The David C. Magid Memorial Prize

Vassar College

1996

Honorable Mention

SMPTE &  Rochester Audio-Visual Association

Student Film Festival

1995

This was a short film, my very first, made while a student at Vassar College back in the spring of 1995. Shot on 16mm with two non-sync magnetic soundtracks, and cut entirely with only a single workprint -- using "cut-and-splice" editing and no post-production mixing or internegatives -- the film is primitive compared to today's era of hi-def video and digital editing technology. And I'll be the first to admit that the film ain't perfect. Still, though, I'm proud of it, and it's been screened at various film festivals and television stations throughout the country, and once it was even screened in Australia.

 

I really have to thank the performance of actor Alex Ferrari, who at the time was a sophomore, willing to spend four of his weekends shooting the film. My film partner, Seth Granger, also put up with my (many) tantrums during filming. And finally, my film professor, the late Ken Robinson, for his instruction and guidance. 

 

Ken once told me that I was "the most stubborn sonufa bitch" in the class. I still regard it as a compliment.

 

I'll never forget you, Ken...

personal

Archives

The HD REMASTER

While moving to a new home in early 2019, I went through a lot of old photos and videos, and rediscovered the original film print of "8:00 a.m." I finally decided to splurge and have a new HD transfer made at FotoKem. The 16mm print had already been scratched to hell while at college (we played it over and over in the classroom), but the two magnetic sound tracks had deteriorated over nearly 25-years of storage, and were unusable. The sound presented here, which was already of poor quality, had to be reconstructed from an old digibeta video transfer. The music tracks were added back in, but required a bit of tinkering, as the CD sources did not sync entirely with the timing of the original magnetic tapes.

Revisiting the film was a surreal experience, and brought back a lot of memories during my time at Vassar.

Below is a comparison of the old video vs. new digital masters.

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