This week, Jackson and I had a busy week of editing our teaser trailer for Black Flat. To begin, I went through by labelling all files in accordance with the shot list and merging the corresponding sound and video files together – a tedious yet necessary process. Deciding it would be best to treat the scenes separately, together we made an assembly/rough cut for scenes one and two. From this point, the plan was to assess the footage acquired and use it to determine the need for a second shoot.

I strongly believed we did need to do a second shoot, as the footage captured did not really delve into the thriller genre – rather setting up the scene for the thrilling content to come. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy with the scenes and what we able to achieve, but I just felt as though we did not have enough content and did not deliver what we promised. I was confident that in the time remaining I would be able to create a rough-final cut of scenes one and two, and at least an assembly cut of scenes three and four in the event that we filmed them, which was passable as what we made did not need to be polished. Jackson shared my viewpoint and he and I made plans for what to do when in terms of editing the footage. It was do-able.

Sunday rolled around and we still had not discussed as a group whether or not we were definitively shooting on the Tuesday coming. We had our pre-production documents in place and our actors Chris and Scott locked in, so I finally put it to the group once and for all expressing why I thought we should shoot again. However, the rest of our group thought it would place unnecessary pressure on ourselves for an assignment that is not even marked on the media we produce. I understand where they were coming from – the fact of quality over quantity is a valid point, especially since we’re not being marked on what we create – but it bothered me to bail on this thing when it was merely half complete. However, I had been overruled so I accepted that and let it go.

As it turns out, I really struggle with the fact that we are not marked on what we make, nor are we expected to create something complete/whole. If we were, we would’ve surely shot at least twice and actually completed what we set out to make. I understand that it’s valuable to analyse what we make and learn from the process of getting there, but to quit on something unfinished just doesn’t sit well with me. I think I was also disappointed that we didn’t shoot again for more personal reasons – the fact that I could’ve made something really great to show for myself.

Don’t mean to rant, but rather reflect on something that has had a significant impact on my experience in this course. My next post will be more positive I promise, haha.

In Thursday’s class, we took the time to debrief after our shoot and determine our next move. As we did not get a chance to delve into the thriller-esque moments on the previous Tuesday, we decided that a second shoot would be necessary so we could really hone in on the content of that style. However, we no longer had Christina as our lead actress so we needed to think fast and act quick.

Sarah came up with the idea to turn the focus on Damien and Ted to instead build a dynamic relationship between them. In this instance, Damien would be out new protagonist as Emily had (literally) gone missing. We all bound together to develop this new idea – which I actually came to really like despite it not being our original plan – and Jackson and Sarah volunteered to write the script:

See the full script by clicking here.

From this, Sarah and I devised the shot list. We discussed making another storyboard, but we found that this document was not as crucial to our practice. In our first shoot for example, we found ourselves constantly referring to the shot list, rather than the storyboard. Evaluating on this, we determined that the storyboard was not worth spending additional time making. Nonetheless, see below the shot list we collectively created:

To see the full shot list for scenes three and four, click here.

Throughout all this extended pre-production, I was in contact with Scott and Chris and informed them of our new intentions. Unfortunately the only day that they could both do was the upcoming Tuesday – of which only Sarah and I would be available to crew for. As there was seemingly no other option, we agreed on this date and booked this equipment from the techs.

HOWEVER, the plot twists again as Chris messaged me today (Monday) saying that he was no longer available to shoot tomorrow. SIGH. This put us in a inconvenient position as the only other time we could then all shoot would be the FOLLOWING Tuesday of week 12 – the week of our final presentation and a week before our final blogs are due. What seemed to be under control quickly turned manic.

Evidently, all these twists and turns have made our production schedule a little bumpy. We can say we’ve learnt to think on our feet by turning negatives into positives and grown accustomed to working under pressure. If we had more time, we would not have any difficulty turning out what we originally set to do, but unfortunately a few inevitable obstacles have set us back. At this point however, shooting again is not out of the question – I still believe it is do-able, especially seeing as we’re not expected to hand in polished pieces of work. In our consult with Jasmine, we established that we would assess the footage that we have and this would inform whether or not we should risk shooting again.