Production - Conclusion

This module was definitely a learning experience. And was great to have a module to be enthusiastic about and get to choose our favourite pitch and job role. We had a few technical issues in the first week of production, but we pulled through and handled it well.

The actors were a pleasure to work with, patient and understood what I was after and my vision. Despite Jo not being an actress, she did really well and was open to criticism. All the actors were very enthusiastic about the project (Nathan, our June, even made a track for it!)

I did quite a bit of research for this film, as it's something I find interesting and know about. I wanted to fully develop each character and add a few Easter Eggs, such as the tarot card readings meaning something to each character, and also Gartha's Wicked shirt. 

We all stuck to our job roles! Our producer was always on time with paperwork and understood what I wanted. Our sound op only turned up to one of our shoots (this is what happens when you're in multiple groups!). However, most of the shots on the first day of filming were extremely out of focus or just unusuable. We were hoping this was just happen once, but it happened multiple times, so I had to keep reminding them to focus. They need to speak up if something is wrong and if we need to do it again! I would not like to work with them as they made me very stressed and worried, complaining, closed-minded about shots I had ideas for, and just being plain rude.

Getting equipment was a huge issue for us. We were given the scraps for every day of our shooting which I thought was unfair. We were put off from using the tracking dolly again due to it's weight and awkwardness. We wanted the slider as we were on the move a lot. The group that wanted it said it was ok for us to have it and changed their mind last minute, which was also unfair. Despite a few cuts and bruises from this, we handled it well and got everything filmed. 

I was a bit tough at times, especially asking the producer to arrange something with the other group for getting the slider, but only because I knew we were going to be walking a lot and I wanted to make it look as good as I could and how I visualised it. In the future, I should be less demanding and more accepting.

Me and the editor worked really well together. We both have similar ideas with me being the director and him also being the writer. Even though we only had 3 and a half days to edit at first, (it was a bit unfair how other groups had more time than us) we did really well. 

Continuity was a huge issue for us, such as actors walking at different points, changing lines, wearing hats when they shouldn't be and was very time consuming to edit. In the future, someone should be on the lookout for these issues.

I have learnt a lot from this module, such as no matter how good your directing is, it doesn't matter if the camera looks bad. So I would definitely like to be camera op next year and have a good go at producing (I feel I did a bad job last time as I wasn't enthusiastic about the project I was producing).