Our team was called Jatcam. Jatcam was just the first letters of each of our names in the team. Myself, Amy Nichoson, TJ Rankin, Chyna Wilkinson-Gale, Andrew Mardon and Matthew Shepherd. Unfortunately TJ had to pull out but it was too late to change the name to Jacam. Although we did get two addition team members in Jade Morgan and Simon Morris. We had Andrew, Amy and Chyna as actor/actresses, Simon as boom operator/minor actor/other stuff. Matthew and myself on the cameras and also the directors.
To be a good director you have to have the whole story in mind. The movie's already created in your mind and you are relaying your imagined shots and angles to your cameraman. I know this now. At the shoot, I could not figure out what would be good for shots and was really concerned that my camera work wouldn't be good enough come post. Thank goodness Matt was there and was able to just try out shots. His enthusiasm carried the whole team through that gruelling Saturday shoot. I would say he did more in the filming and directing part of this project than I did.
The take back from the experience would be to
- Write a script with no shots, just how everything is going to happen
- Memorise the script and start going through it in your head
- Write down the shots next to the actions and dialogue in the script
- Story board what you had in mind. Take an arts class to learn how to draw
It helps the editor too. Then it's just finding the correct takes. Which would be made a lot easier again if each take was titled and recorded. We tried doing that at the start but gave up on when people just wanted to get it done. Clappers would have been handy and I see the importance of them. Writing down the good takes on each scene would of decreased the time spent looking for them in post. And who would of known capturing the footage straight after the shoot would be good. Even as I'm writing this, I am re-editing the film and I've found many shots wasn't even captured. With all the problems with editing, Matt didn't have a chance to re-work some of the audio and was left with nothing to do on the Sunday.
Amy, Andrew, Chyna and Simon did really well in front of the camera and there were enough out takes and general silliness for a blooper reel. That will come out as soon as I finish my edit of the film. Unfortunately though, I can't seem to find Chyna's giggling fit so I thought I'd mention it here for the record.
Upon writing this, I got a text from the 48Hour crew saying that our final cut has no audio. Due to time, I did not check the tape after it was done. They gave me another opportunity though. I finish re-cutting it, put it on tape and check to make sure everything plays fine. Unfortunately the audio varies and I don't know how to normalise it but it will have to do. Spent way too much time on this but I fully appreciate how long editing actually takes now.
The screening went ok. The film, compared to the others that were shown in heat 11 was neither good nor bad. Thinking on it now it was a damn good effort for a team that had no proper filming experience before. I just have to keep reminding myself that I had no prior experience before this in film making. It really opened my eyes and I hope I can do it again. See how it goes next year. Thanks again guys. It was a fun weekend even with all my stuff ups. If I were to do it again I'd like to do with the same team. You guys were a hoot :)
0 comments:
Post a Comment