A bit of catch-up

Wow, it's been almost a month since I last blogged! of course a lot has happened in that time, but I think it would be best to try to limit myself to a few important things, rather than try to catch up on everything.

We have finished work on our Studio films, and had our screening and feedback session on Wednesday. From my point of view, it was a great success, in that almost all of the feedback for my film was very positive. People were very complimentary about many aspects of the whole piece, including saying that I had good performances from the actors, that my shot choices were good as they allowed the audience to get inside the scene, and that the pace of the edit was very good. People actually laughed, which is fantastic. As great as all of this is, there were a number of things that I would have liked to do better, but I've already talked about those in a different post. One other problem that comes from the compliments is the issue of pressure - I feel like I have a standard to maintain. I feel like, for me psychologically, it's harder to fight against disappointing people than it is to fight to surprise people. All this is just ego getting in the way though; I should be focusing on making the best film I can for myself and because I care about the film, not to impress others.

Another thing that has occurred was the first readings of the short film scripts yesterday, Friday. Seven were read but I only really liked two of them - Ben's and Sophie's. Then I had the problem that I liked both of them equally. Ben's script gave me great ideas for a fun visual style, but I felt the ending needed quite a lot of work. Sophie's had a very sweet story and very full characters, however it was too long and didn't necessarily inspire any visual ideas for me. I ended up putting them as equal first preference, and was allocated Sophie's script. I'm very nervous about it. It demands excellent performances and a lot of subtlety I think. Music will be very important. The thing that makes me most nervous though is the fact that I might not get the ideal crew, as it doesn't hold much excitement from their perspective as far as I can see. It doesn't lend itself to a whacky, distinctive visual style, the editing will be fairly straight-forward, and it won't be particularly exciting to go location scouting for as the only location is a single house with a front yard. I shall have to work very hard to prepare a good pitch, but where does one find the time?!

One of the biggest things that has been taking up my time lately is the play, New York. Sometimes it's very rewarding and sometimes it's exceedingly frustrating. One of the frustrating things was not having creative control over the play. My role in it has essentially been to just work with two actors to develop their characters and the way they play the scene. Having someone else be in control of the concept was frustrating for a while, as we came up with a number of ideas but always had to wait to find out whether tey would fit in with the play as a whole, which they never did. I've also spent a huge amount of time in the rehearsals and performances without actually being very useful. On the other hand, last night's second performance was very rewarding. I had felt that my actors were taking their monologues way off track, so I caught each of them between the first and second performances and did some one-on-one work with them, which we haven't done since group rehearsals began in earnest last... Friday, I think it was. After that work, their performances were so much better that I felt incredibly proud and humbled at the same time. I also gave a couple of the other actors a bit of feedback and saw huge improvements in their work too. Sometimes directing feels as pointless and painful as bashing your head against a brick wall, but last night it felt just right. I'm so lucky to have the opportunity to train and practise as a director!