This week proved to be incredibly effective and informative and just on a whole felt like a big treat to be able to dedicate so much time and energy to one scene at this point in the course. I feel that my group went very well in that we all worked together effectively and were incredibly organised, so much so that we were able to get everything covered and then have the opportunity, in terms of time, to experiment with interesting shots and movements for both groups.
This week most certainly accomplished what Robin and Paul talked about wanting to achieve for us at the start of the semester, by providing the opportunity to concentrate so much on one scene yet with nearly same production value in terms of crew members as our films last year. I think what also facilitated the effectiveness of this task was that we were able to carry it out without having the daunting feeling of having a whole film to shoot that day and with it all not really contributing to meaning anything in terms of grades, as it left us in a place of actually getting to learn and play, which is something I think grading can hinder.
First off I really liked how our group operated in terms of assigning roles. Jess initiated a system in which we all put our names down for the roles we’d like to do and then essentially picked them out of a hat. This really worked in that we were able to get around the usual frustration of these group projects whereby the same very confident and forthcoming people end being the director or DOP. It was really great on the day of filming that everyone really worked incredibly well together by remaining really focused on their role no matter how small, which is what I think proved to be our biggest strength.
Another great thing about the day is that while everyone took the task very seriously we all had a great deal of fun doing it, and the fact that everything was going quite well was definitely felt in the energy amongst all of us.
In terms of my participation during the day, I was a bit disgruntled coming into the task as I really wanted this to be the week that I got to take on a bigger role only to be stuck with being an actor for the first group and boom pole operator for the second. This was especially as I was absent from last Friday’s class where everyone got to direct a shot. However I still feel I took the best of the situation and used it as an opportunity to learn about working as a cohesive team which is as necessary a skill from director down to boom poll operator.
Epiphany of the week: It’s pretty simple this week, but it’s just a reminder that you have to look for the lesson in every position you fulfil on set no matter what level of importance.