The first week

So the first week of uni has finished and the second has begun, and if I don't write an entry about week one now then I never will.

Monday:

I was late for the first class, which was listed on the timetable as "screening or physical class". I was a little bit disappointed to find that we will not be having either screening or physical classes; instead we will be having lectures and seminars. Never mind.

I have enrolled in NZ & Contemporary Theatre this semester, as opposed to NZ Film like the rest of my classmates. My class consists entirely of actors except for one writer - Joe - and I. The morning consisted of going to the library to research and decide who we felt were the most influential theatre practitioners of the 20th century. I have to admit that I wasn't wholly committed to the task; I paired up with Caroline and found myself at a table of girls all catching up following the holidays, and I ended up joining in many of their conversations. The afternoon was a drag, as we all shared our lists with the class. Nevertheless, I did benefit from it, as so many names that I'd never heard before and I began to realise how much I don't know. Going into the morning session, I had thought that I had a pretty good knowledge of 20th century theatre practitioners already, and it's true that I did know many of the names, however seeing all the ones I didn't know opened me up a lot more to the work. The focus of the course is going to be on reading and research, and we are to keep a research journal each week, documenting our reading and findings. I have to say, I find this task very daunting. Discipline is not necessarily my strong point, and I also have a tendency to take each task far too seriously. I can imagine that the journal entries, which will presumably take everyone else about 2 hours per week to complete, are likely to take the entire week for me, every week. I guess I'll just have to try to train myself.

Tuesday:

The morning session, talking through our studio films with Milton and Elizabeth, was far easier than expected. It had seemed as though we would need a lot of preparation for the session, but in fact I was fine with minimal preparation. I did catch myself out a couple of times though, although always too late. I think I sometimes exhibit a certain arrogance and attitude problem, which makes me cringe to even think about. I caught myself speaking reacting to certain problems that other directors were having as though the problems were really very simple and they should not worry about them. The truth is, I am glad I am not in some people's position, and I certainly have no right to act as though I could handle anything. I am neither very knowledgable, nor very experienced. I have no idea where my sudden ego came from. Whatever the case, I am now resolved to learn to keep my mouth shut until I am sure I want to open it.

Wednesday:

I was supposed to have a team meeting for the studio films in the morning. I had no idea what this meant, but worked hard storyboarding the night before to ensure I would be able to answer most questions about the shots at least. Actually, hardly anyone turned up to the team meeting, and certainly no one actually seemed like they wanted to be there. It was very informal. I think I did well though; having the informal situation and the essential people present gave me the chance to speak informally about the project and finally get people excited to work on it. I was very demonstrative and energetic, and asked for people's ideas and opinions, and was able to answer most questions, or work around the ones I couldn't. Finally, it seemed as though people might actually care. Usually I would hope to get everyone very excited about the project at the first pre-production meeting, but the fact of the matter was that at the first meeting at the end of last term I had very little excitement myself. In fact I just flat out didn't care, as I was drowning in looming assessments. Now that I am interested though, it wasn't hard to get the crew to that point too.

The afternoon session involved four directors each getting up in front of the whole directing and acting classes, plus Milton and Elizabeth, and conducting a rehearsal. I felt very sorry for Chris having to go first. He's very softly spoken, and Elizabeth kept asking him to speak up, which of course made going first that much tougher. I took during notes during Chris's rehearsal, as we had been instructed to do, but after that I just gave up as each director copied Chris's exact methods. I felt embarassed for our directing class, that everyone was so uninteresting! And as I watched everyone else's rehearsals, all I could think of was "this would NOT suit my script. What on earth am I going to do?!"

Thursday:

Pre-production meeting. I got my shot list to Lisa on time on Thursday night and it was duly handed out. Larry estimates that my first shot is going to take about two and a half hours to shoot. Ouch. I guess I will have to change it, but what to? I already have too many shots so I don't want to cut it up into multiple shots - it's just not worth it. Also, it's the opening shot. If I don't have a fantastic opening shot, why bother? But if it's going to take that long to shoot then I pretty much sacrifice the rest of the film, so once again, why bother? Argh, it's going to have to change - I just don't know what to. Apart from that, the meeting went well. There were plenty of questions, but I was able to answer most pretty easily, and everyone seemed pretty calm. This is the bonus of being the last shoot scheduled. Larry even said he thought I was a good director - hurrah!

The afternoon session was once again four directors conducting rehearsals in front of everybody, and this time that meant me. As I watched the first three directors I jotted down a rehearsal plan, but when I got up all I really knew was that I couldn't be like them. Over the course of the two afternoons the routine that Chris had started had gradually evolved into a strange talk-show format. There was nothing genuine left.

I had one assignment for myself: get the actors excited about the film. Having taken a long time to become excited about it myself, I assumed that they might feel similarly about the script to me. I am also aware that when you're not excited about a project you will procrastinate, but when you are excited you will work hard. I think for most actors, the first reason they choose to do acting is because it is fun. So to convince them to choose to work hard on my film, I need to take them to that place of fun that sparks their love of acting and therefor their energy, even if it's just in the first rehearsal.

Happily, I think I succeeded. Funnily enough, the biggest hindrance I found was the tutors. I was moving through my rehearsal quite happily and all was going to plan, when the tutors chimed in. This was to be expected - they were there to give feedback to the directors and help them with their rehearsals, however instead of giving me feedback, the tutors spoke directly to the actors, giving them offering after offering on their characters, and inadvertently beginning to direct my film and my rehearsal themselves. I have to say, I sat on the floor fuming and thinking that they were ruining my plans. I was even going to address the problem with them afterwards, but fortunately I had to sit through a feedback session with the other directors, and this gave me time to put it in perspective. After all, the rehearsal certainly did end well and I did feel that I had achieved my goal. And some of the discussions that the tutors had with my actors were helpful. And they certainly had not seemed to realise that they had jumped in and started to direct the film. I decided to take it as a compliment instead. Perhaps they got so excited too, that they couldn't help themselves and their director/actor instincts just came bursting out and got carried away :-) This probably isn't true, but it helps me to think it is! At the very least, I'm glad that I kept my mouth shut in this case, as I would have ruined a good mood and a good afternoon if I had opened it.

Friday:

Friday afternoon was time set aside for us to rehearse with our actors. Having gotten them excited about the film, I decided to use the time to do the serious text analysis work that the other directors had used their previous rehearsals for. I think it went very well with Ashton and Sarah. Both of them brought creative ideas about their characters to the table, and we were able to have a good laugh over the possibilities and eventually make some valuable decisions about the characters. Unfortunately though, I did not have as much success with Felix. Felix is also acting in Ian's film, and therefore I had to share Felix with Ian in the rehearsal. Unfortunately, this meant that Felix missed out on our original discussions about the characters, and also the good mood and good ideas that were flying about. When Felix was able to join us, many decisions had already been made and Ashton and Sarah tuned out as I talked to Felix. Since they were not strictly necessary to the conversation I found it hard to retain their attention. As a result, Felix had less creative freedom with his character, and the mood was not quite right to promote the fun exploration that was really required. I think that through the discussions I was eventually able to help him see the possibilities and the choices available to him, however his enthusiasm seems considerably lower than I would like at this stage. I always expected that I would have to work hard with him - I've often noticed a tendency towards negativity and resistance in him - I'm just disappointed at the extent, and frustrated as I know the shared time will continue to cause a problem through the whole process.

On Friday night I decided to enact an idea I had had the day before; to make a website about my studio film. Basically, I get sick of chasing people all the time, sending emails and text messages, handing out paperwork, etc. I wanted a central point where people could find all the information available. So I have made a website to do just that. I have been thinking of making a website for a while actually - just to try it out - so this was an excellent opportunity for the experiment. Anyway, I think it is a success so far, although I haven't had much feedback. (This is the one bad point - I always like feedback, and if I put out information on a website then people can access it without actually having to speak to me. Mind you, they don't reply to emails half the time anyway so it's really not much different). Anyway, the site is loveinanelevator.weebly.com. Here's to its success!