Reflection #11: A Sudden Realisation, A Poetic Reflection

I am beginning to realise just how lucky I am to have gotten this far, riding not only on the sparks of my passion but the ideas that ignite that passion as well.

Up until now I was either working by myself or was very lucky to find myself with someone like-minded, passionate about the subject matter and more than open to discuss the project and its inner workings.
And now I find myself facing reality finally. I now realise just how lucky I was. I find myself at the creative head of the group. As the writer, director and editor of the project I am in creative control. Is that because one could call this project my brain child? I guess so. But I believe it is more than that. For me it seems as though I am the only one passionate about the project, the only one who sees that at the end of this process there will be a film and not a grade.

So I am filling every minute of this film with myself while I try to corral my other group members into doing the same, into believing as I do about the film, and I am reminded of the futility of the act through the struggles of my forbears, in a far larger institution with a much larger goal in mind for its creative commodity. Hollywood. The ultimate institution. No idea is safe from an ultimate ulterior motive, the motives of those who seek to own and monetise your creativity for their own ruthless purposes. Until only the fumes of passion keep the artist moving ahead to continuing the slowly depleting fibonacci cycle.

It may seem strange and ultimately melancholy of me to bring capitalism and the commodifying of creativity into a reflection about team work and collaboration, but if this past week and its subsequent reflections have taught me anything, it’s that everyone has their own reason for doing something. You’d better make damn sure that they’re all doing it for the right reasons, treating it the same way, with the same level of passion as you, or there will be major disparities in the workload and you will find yourself feeling alone, which is something no creative should feel on such a personal journey as creating something.

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The shoot this morning went surprisingly well despite the fact that we only had 3 people on set in total, including myself (director), Chynnae and Ryan (actor). This meant that we had to be resourceful. I honestly don’t believe we would have been able to do it had I not already had the experience of dealing with problems on low budget and crew-strapped sets. We were also very lucky that we had no dialogue to record so were able to simply record atmos and sound effects after the scene was over, this allowed for Chynnae to hold the diffusion as I positioned the camera and filmed. I was able to direct, film and act as first A.D during the entire shoot. This may have been due to the nature of the scene, or the fact that as such a small crew we were struggling with so few hands, but with me taking charge and taking on those roles we were able to complete the shoot comfortably in record time.

Also, I talked more with Ryan and Chynnae about what roles they would like to take on further into the project, if they would like to become more involved in the editing process, sound design, organisation, etc. Ryan has said that he’d like to come on board to do the music and sound design (which is awesome!) and Chynnae wants to be more involved in the writing and editing processes. While I said I’d love the help with writing, I did however find that once we’d sat down I had written the piece already in a moment of inspiration. Hopefully Chynnae will be able to get more involved in the final moment that is yet to be written.

*I was unable to talk to Sam, as he was not at the shoot. He seems to be interested in camera though.

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