According to the Studio Guide, a blog post on our thoughts about collaboration is required…so here it is.
Throughout this semester, we have participated in small group or class exercises that work like a mini film crew. These were helpful in giving me a sense of collaboration, in terms of everyone having their own jobs and working together (albeit dysfunctionally) to achieve a final product. I found going through all the motions of an actual film set, for example having the first AD/sound/camera/director chain of “quiet on set/camera and sound ready/roll camera/action/cut” useful as it gave a sense of how a real crew would work. I realised that everyone really needs to work together in order for the shoot to go smoothly, true to the phrase “a chains is only as strong as its weakest link”. As the class exercises have demonstrated, there will inevitably be a million little problems that arise left and right during every shooting day. Things like conflict between creative directions, OH/S issues, continuity problems and general disorganisation that occurred in our small scale shoots demonstrated the more significant problems that happen in real life film sets. These reflections made me think about how organisation and troubleshooting will be important aspects to work through during my own future projects.
Another form of collaboration I experienced during this semester’s group works and thought was particularly important to discover was the actor/director relationship. In one of the class exercises, I reluctantly agreed to be an actor and stepped out of my comfort zone. This was my first time having to take direction being in front of the camera, and the experience allowed me to have a better understanding of working with a director’s vision as well as collaborating with other actors. On the other hand, during one of the exercises for my individual investigation, I took on the role of director. Even though I was just communicating with a friend and not a professional actor, I found that it was still hard to articulate clearly what I had in mind and to direct their specific actions. I’m generally not very good at telling people what to do, so having to practice these skills of being confident about what I want as the person in charge is really beneficial. I know that this is something I’ll have to get used to if I want to work in the film industry, so I’ll have to continue challenging myself to express my ideas to other people.
Outside the classroom, my most rewarding reflections on collaboration actually happened when I was helping out a friend in another Media Studio with her group’s shoot. Although our studio involved individual research journeys for the second half of the semester, her studio required a group effort to plan and shoot a completed short film. Being an extra on one of her shoots, I was able to observe how they all worked together, taking on the roles of director, producer, cinematographer and sound recorder. Being an ‘actor’ on the other side of the screen instead of being behind the camera, I was able to witness from a third person angle how they communicated with each other. This offered a different angle to our class exercises, where I was actually apart of the crew. Working closely over the past few weeks, they had built up an effective rapport and system of working together so that each shot advanced quickly and smoothly. Everyone clearly knew their own responsibilities and seemed to have agreed on the same creative outlook prior to shooting. I really liked how they had collaborated successfully over the few weeks to become a team and build something from the ground up, and I hope that I can also be apart of a collaborative experience like this in the coming few semesters.
