Decisions
Experience Analysis
(Summary at bottom)
'Decisions' is what I class as my first proper low budget directorial debut. Up till this point however I had made another small short college film and one piece for my GCSE, so I wasn't completely inexperienced.
For this, we were assigned the prompt of making a 5 minute film either related to a life altering event, or a decision. As of such I named the project after the latter prompt that i had chosen to base my film on. We were given one day to film (8 hours), a house that we could rent rooms of, and a Canon HD DSLR camera. Later we were able to edit, but only during timetabled lessons, using the College's Mac Book computers to run Final Cut Pro. For the film, I wanted to make a story of someone who, despite their best efforts, everything seems to go wrong from one decision that was taken with good intention.
When crafting this I attempted to keep the nature of our limited filming day in mind, and tried to chose locations all within a close proximity of each other- these being 2 locations in the aforementioned house (located on the College campus), an alleyway near the college, and the local train station. All of these locations were within a few minutes of walking from the College itself, so they seemed appropriate. The rest of pre production was fairly standard without trouble. I constructed a script, a storyboard, a shot list, a costume list and a shooting plan to send to each of my actors. Although nothing glaringly of issue for the most part of these, if I were to go back I would make them more professional and refined- for example not using Microsoft Word for the script.
However, one issue I hadn't anticipated was how the nature of the script/ shot list would directly translate into filming times. Thus far with my other work, this was something that coincidentally had managed to go under the radar, as I'd never made much conscious effort about it because it merely had never been an issue before. As of such, on the day of shooting I found my shoot to go on a lot longer than my peers, and despite my locations being within close proximity, I had simply been too ambitious with how many there were, and I had given unrealistic timings for how long they would then last in the edit. To add to this, my choice to film in the station presented itself with a glaring issue of how the train fit its way into the story; we would need to get a perfect one take of the train coming into and leaving the station in order to fit in the shooting schedule (as they came every 30 minutes). Furthermore, despite having gotten permission prior to film, the current manager of the station was unaware of this and was initially confused, eating into our time and causing issues with filming around the barriers and other people (who were also confused by our characters costume, mistaking him frequently for a worker). In spite of this, we managed to get the necessary shots and complete the shoot on time to a decent standard of quality, albeit slightly rushed towards the end.
As mentioned prior, this abundance of footage then later became an issue in the edit as I had too much footage to fit within the time 5 minute time constraint. To get around this, I re-used the song from the opening montage and made it into a recurring motif. Utilising this, I then edited around the nature of the song within the third act in order to cross cut between the moment of the man leaving the station, and with him receiving his fine- This managed to be something I even ended up preferring of the original script. No further issue arose with the film in its post production, and I managed to receive an A grade on the project, along with an award for 'Best Editing' at the RAFTA's (Reigate Annual Film and Television Awards).
REFLECTION
The project served as a good introduction to the process of filmmaking on a smaller scale. The nature of timing stresses that arose on the day highlighted to me two things
- It showed to myself and others my ability to adapt to situations under pressure- something I've found to be a key skill within film productions
- The significance of testing and planning. The more intricate the plan, the smoother things will go as we will know precisely what to prepare for (however issues will always be inevitable)
In the nature of testing and planning, it taught be to think more logistically about locations, even if one factor (such as geographical proximity) is good, it doesn't mean other issues don't arise from its inclusion (such as the train station being busy and inconvenient to film at). This film also highlighted to me that I must be more appreciative of how an idea would better translate into physical filming time, something I'd come to hone in my later years. One of the most important experiences I gained from this is how to conduct myself appropriately under pressure- whether that be filming time or editing time limits. There is always a way to get something done well, and perhaps even better. No matter what you must always keep your attitude high as it is what the rest of your cast and crew will carry, and I take pride in that being how i conducted myself across my roles (most notably director) on this as I believe it's what pushed the product into an overall success of what it could be. However, going back I believe I would change the nature of the idea, and would focus more on natures such as set design and cinematography which could've elevated the production quality- as other aspects such as the editing were as refined as they could have been for the particular product and time of my experience in my opinion (though not perfect).
SUMMARY
Equipment
- Canon HD DSLR
- Filming house where rooms could be rented (Castlefield Studios)
- Final Cut Pro
- No extra budget (personally funded costumes)
Constraints
- 1 day filming ( 8 hours)
- 5 minute maximum film length
- Editing only during timetabled slots
Academic grade
- A (A-Level)
Experience learnt
- How to adapt effectively under pressure whilst keeping a friendly and professional conduct
- The importance of planning to identify issues you may not have thought of and to ensure a smoother shoot
- How a script/ shot list translates into filming time and overall content length
Overall
- Successful in what it needed to be, yet could be more refined in areas such as the production design or in the overall quality of the film form such as the cinematography (most notably lighting- being mostly reliant on natural sources)