Peer Interview MGSA Thesis 2012 with Frank Trumbetti

For my first entree for my Thesis blog, just before my first weekly blog, I will be interviewing a fellow classmate of mine: Frank Trumbetti. After reviewing some of each others work and exchanging a few questions, I've learned quite a bit about video and how different it is from other academic concentrations available here at Mason Gross School of the Arts. Frank has just returned from abroad, studying in Japan and taking footage for use hopefully for his thesis in the upcoming year. He's looking forward to being able to branch out a little in this thesis class, straying from his usual work driven by the assignments from the university.

Katie Kelly: "Most of your videos left me on the edge of my seat, I could feel a layer of suspense that was consistent throughout your works: like you didn't know what to expect next. Is this a theme you work to put into everything you do or is it more random?"

Frank Trumbetti: "Suspense is definitely a theme in all of my works. I like to make people feel weird, but not uncomfortable like some others like to do. We're so used to seeing the big Hollywood type of films where they show you the most grotesque thing you can possibly imagine and scare you into achieving the same effect I'm going for too: very weird. But in a good way I guess. You don't want to make people uncomfortable enough to not want to watch your film."
 Katie: "So shock value has no appeal for you?" Frank: "No not at all."

Katie Kelly: "You said that editing was your passion in this field, does this have any role on this theme of 'wierdness' you're going for?"

Frank Trumbetti: "Yes absolutely, since my work is all over the place, random thoughts play out with each other in each video editing is used to transition between them. I like to play around with editing, but I have to be careful of things like being able to convey a sense of time passing. That is something I've been working on recently.

Katie Kelly: "I've noticed in the works you've shown me that most of them are mostly fairly short in terms of length, is this something you incorporate into your works? How does length help play a part in your videos themes?"

Frank Trumbetti: "I don't really intend on most of my works being short, they just happen to turn out that way. I always thought that to make successful videos you have to be accomplished at making good videos with not a lot of time available to you first, and then you'll have a better idea of what time means to an audience and how to keep their attention without losing any value or meaning. Right now I think my longest piece is 15 minutes, that was really challenging."

Katie Kelly: "I don't really know a lot about video production, what challenges do you face as a video major that some other media groups would not?"

Frank Trumbetti: "Collaborating with others is the hardest thing to do. Especially at such an early stage of my career, funds are limited and nearly all of my actors are just friends volunteering to help out. It's difficult to get your vision of what you want across when you are working with a lot of different people. Trying to schedule times and places for everyone to meet for even just one day can be really frustrating. You don't always get the reactions you want either, compromise is important in this field.

Katie Kelly: "So you would say 'who you know' is better than 'what you know', I mean, funding is really that important? How do you work around this in school?"

Frank Trumbetti: "Unfortunately, since bigger budgets give you more options people with money do have an advantage. MGSA has prepared me though for whats ahead, and how to think outside of the box and work with what you have. They help show you a way to avoid the typical Hollywood cliche's, there are so many movies out now a lot of stuff is repeated over and over because it's popular, but we're taught value can come at any budget. MGSA has exposed me to a lot of things I wouldn't have seen in the mainstream media, its helped to broaden my mind to new ideas that will help this year.

Katie Kelly: "Speaking of new ideas, what or who is your inspiration? Do you look to anyone's work in particular?"

Frank Trumbetti: "Akira Kurosawa is probably my biggest inspiration he makes a lot of really famous Japanese movies such as Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954) and Yojimbo. Although he is a big director that is profoundly successful in portraying historical narratives, it's his style that I want to aspire to, he's well known for using editing creatively and his movies are also well known for their oddities, mainly new techniques he was experimenting with Hollywood wasn't used to seeing back then. I guess my erratic sense of theme really comes from him. Being in Japan this last year gave me a lot of time to take footage in their culture and really get a better understanding of his works.

Katie Kelly: "Is this something you're looking to persue with your thesis this upcoming year?"

Frank Trumbetti: "Yes, I want to incorporate my experience abroad- not just a narrative of what happened day by day, but more like what has this experience done to me as a person? How have I grown from this experience? I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do yet, but this would be the direction I'd like to take."


Thanks Frank for taking the time out to interview with me! I want to see some of the stuff you took in Japan. He was over there during the recent Tsunami disaster and I'm excited to see the kinds of things he found there.

Coming soon: Weekly Blogging!