Milestone 1 - Updated Concept

Mid project reflection

I think the preproduction stage has gone well. I met with Abdul, Jazmin and Mark when we were free on campus to discuss the project and throw some ideas around on what we could improve. I started a draft edit using Jazmin's images from her project 1 submission so we could get an idea of pacing. We all came up with ideas for some new shots such as the clock on the bedside table showing the passing of time and Mark suggested having a plate of food being eaten and showing it empty later on. Abdul started working on the storyboard and after the meeting we kept updating each other on Google Spaces.

I believe all of our team members work well together, even though Anaam was unable to join us on campus in the meeting they would message us on Google Spaces and we made sure to keep them up to date on the project. We all had the freedom to put forward ideas and it never felt like anyone was trying to take control away from anyone else. I believe the freedom to speak one's mind is one of the most important things for a successful creative project, it's a proven mindset encouraged at successful companies like Pixar (Catmull, 2014).

The biggest struggle with this project so far is organising a day where we all have free time to shoot the film. Sunday seemed to be the only day to lineup well so we locked that down as the shoot day and Abdul booked the gear.

I'm going to be Director of Photography which is quite exciting for me. That was one of the jobs I wanted growing up and I almost did the Film course instead of Animation at SAE because of how much I loved the idea of pursuing DoP as a career. I'm quite confident in my technical abilities with the camera but I'm unsure how I will go with the actual shooting. It will be a new environment for me which can overwhelm my brain so I will have to be 100% focussed on the day.

Everyone else is also very competent in what they do and I believe we all have the motivation to make this as good as we can for our first film shoot.

References

Catmull, E. (2014). Creativity, Inc. (p. 251). Random House.

Milestone 2 - Rough Edit

Post project reflection

• • What went well?

    • The shoot went fairly smoothly and we were done a little bit faster than we thought we would be. We managed to get all the shots we needed and there weren't any issues with the equipment. Everyone was there for the shoot and did their part. I had complete trust in the team while filming and it felt like a very collaborative effort. Jazmin was encouraging everyone to give any new ideas if we had any or to give feedback. She would ask what we thought about each take and if we needed to redo it or if there was anything new we could try for the next take.

On the last shot, we wanted to have a fading away effect for the dementor character so I made sure to shoot a VFX plate where I matched the actual shot as closely as possible to ensure the fade effect looked seamless (Dinur, 2017) .

Once we were done filming I was able to get all the video footage and audio onto my laptop and upload it Google Drive for everyone with no issues.

• • What didn't go well?

    • We ended up a bit late to the location as one of the members was running behind. This didn't affect much as the shoot was faster than expected.

There are some shots that I wish I could redo because while they looked good on the small monitor on the camera I found they might not necessarily look as good on a bigger screen; things such as jerky zooming out motions, the exposure settings or slightly poor timing on a camera move.

• • So what should I have done? What can I do differently in future?

I think there were times where I was rushing too fast to get a shot done or was having trouble thinking because there was a lot going on at once and couldn't pay attention. It was a new environment for me doing tasks I'm not used to. I think something like this takes practice to get comfortable and be able to focus in on each individual aspect whereas I was being slightly overwhelmed by so much going on at once. I still think I did a decent job and was able to get usable takes for every scene.

• • Now what do I need to learn now?

Once this trimester is finished, I will have completed my course at SAE and will part ways with everyone in the film course. I have some of their contact details to stay in touch so there is still a possibility of getting to work with them again, whether on set or as a VFX artist. I can apply my skills I've learnt here into my field of animation where I use a virtual camera instead of a real one.

I still want to learn more about cinematography in the future and plan to do some reading into more advanced techniques and workflows. I also bought a Rode NTG2 shotgun mic off eBay to continue to learn more about audio recording and I have some personal projects I'm looking to use it for.

This class and these projects have helped me tick off two goals I've always had: be on a film set and get to be a Director of Photograpy for a shoot. I'm extremely happy to have achieved those goals, even though it wasn't on a massive production and only student projects, I got to have the experience working with motivated people on film sets where everyone was striving towards the same end goal and collaborating together.

References

Dinur, E. (2017). The Filmmaker’s Guide to Visual Effects (1st ed., p. 131). Taylor & Francis.