By far the best part about Yale is the amazing people who surround you. I can’t sing, act or dance (at least not well), yet I’ve met virtuosos in all of them. One of these virtuosos also happens to live with me, filmmaker Daniel Matyas. Before I met Daniel, my knowledge of film pretty much began and ended with what I liked (my favorites include The Princess Bride, Star Wars and a slew of romantic comedies). Watching Netflix with Daniel, I’ve picked up all kinds of nuances about filmmaking that I never knew existed.
Daniel continues to make movies at Yale, and his new short film, Ready, is out now.
Ready has the ominous tagline, “One man prepares his breakfast, while three others prepare his demise.” It’s a suspenseful five minutes filled with assassinations, betrayals and well, as the tagline suggests, breakfast. The film was shot entirely in and around Yale. Locations include the Timothy Dwight Chubb suite, the Branford Master’s Office and various other guest suites across campus. All of the film’s actors and cameramen were Yale students. Yalies also produced the film and developed the soundtrack and sound effects. Like many great things at Yale, the film was not part of any class or assignment, and all of the participants volunteered their time. This labor of love has been in production for a little more than a year.
Ready was a big project, and Daniel couldn’t have done it without help from both Yale and our mutual residential college, Timothy Dwight. Daniel got most of his funding for the film through the Yale Creative and Performing Arts Award. This award is open to all undergraduates and seeks to promote pursuits of the arts, whether it is a dance performance, art exhibition or short film. While Daniel brought a lot of equipment with him to Yale, he was able to rent more from the Digital Media Center for the Arts, or DMCA. The DMCA has a large catalog of expensive film and digital media equipment available for any undergraduate to rent. Best of all, they’ll train you for free on any equipment you want to learn how to use.
One of the top reasons that I chose Yale was that I felt that there weren’t that many people just like me here. In my opinion, you learn as much in late-night conversations with your friends and roommates as you do in the classroom. I now know how lightweight rowing works (it’s apparently all in the legs), picked up some Latin dance moves and can critique the “cinematography” in movies. Talk about a true liberal arts education.
Ready is finally “ready” and you can check it out right here:
