A low day

My motivation for making my short film is very low at the moment. I don't really know why that is, because things are going pretty well - we have locations and actors sorted and I still like the script and the story. I'm just struggling to find the motivation to do the work that needs to be done between now and the shoot days - namely, planning and organising and conducting rehearsals, organising costumes, re-assessing my shot list, and having final meetings with HODs.

My primary problem is that I just don't feel like dealing with people at the moment. I think I just need twenty-four hours on my own. I don't want to speak to people, I don't want to email or text people or call people. Sometimes I just need some space, and this is one of those times. I don't have the energy to be a director today; a director should inspire and lead their team, make decisions and have ideas and answers, and instill confidence in the people they work with. These things take a lot of energy. Normally I am a very energetic person, but today I have no energy. Hence I find myself here, writing this blog because at least I'm still getting something done, but it doesn't involve other people. The problem is that it really is urgent that I get on top of all those tasks above - primarily the ones that involve other people.

Maybe it's a health thing. My tummy has been feeling a bit queasy today. And I have a mouth ulcer which probably means my body is currently trying to fend off a cold. That being said, I had a very good sleep last night and there have been plenty of times when I have been very sick but still managed to be tough and vivacious.

Whatever the reason for my low, slow, antisocial feelings, I need to find a cure - and fast.

I realised yesterday afternoon that I have done something foolish. I have left having rehearsals until this weekend, which wouldn't be a problem except that it also means that I have left seeing my actors clothes (which I want to sue as costumes) until this weekend too. That could be a big problem, because if the actors don't have good clothes then I am left with only normal stores as a back-up - which is very expensive. Being Labour weekend, school and op shops will be closed for three days. Eep!

I don't even want to think about it.

In other news, I am having computer troubles. It crashed three times yesterday, in a way that I have never seen it do before. It appears to be a hardware problem rather than a software problem too, which means that I have no idea how to fix it, and suspect it will be very expensive to fix as well. Then today the computer was working fine - but the computer charger would not work. I tried it in many different power sockets but the little green light would not come one. Now I have one hour of computer battery left. I have copied the files that are currently most important to me onto the Unitec computers, but I've only got a few megabytes left on the server now and there are a lot more things I want to be able to back up. It looks like I'm going to have to get a new charger ($60), an external hard-drive ($200), and possibly even a new computer ($1000). On top of having my bike stolen a couple of weeks ago ($600) and breaking my camera ($350), no wonder I am depressed!!!

The good news is, I am gradually getting on top of my theatre research journal - finally! I'm still a fair way behind on it, but I have now gotten into a kind of rhythm and habit of working on it, and no longer find it so incredibly difficult, so therefore being a bit behind is far less daunting as I am confident I can catch up.

Speaking of catching up, the last two weeks:

8th October: We found a great location. One of the art direction students, Andrea, volunteered her house, so Jesse and I went along to have a look. It does have a lot of stuff in it, but it is a god-send. The front yard and facade are great, you can easily see the driveway from the lounge and the lounge from the kitchen, and it's not too difficult to cheat a bedroom window as the kitchen window in order to be able to see the backyard and the neighbour's washing line. It also has a nice big window in the lounge room, and a fairly dark little hallway, both of which I was looking for. As for the bedroom and bathroom, we are going to use a house in Waterview for those things. The great thing is that our main location is Andrea's house, and since she does art direction she will be really patient and understanding of our needs. On the other hand, we're not using her bathroom or bedroom, so at least we're not encroaching too badly on her personal spaces, yet the house where we are using the bedroom and bathroom we won't be there for too long. Sounds good to me!

10th/11th October: On the last weekend of the holidays, one of the second year editing students, Carsten, had the shoot for the short film he has been working on for a while. I had volunteered to do the unit for him, and did so. Unfortunately this meant I was very separated from the set and didn't really get to observe him at work much, but it was good to be able to use my skills (I've worked in hospitality for years) to help someone out. It was also great as I got the chance to work with my boyfriend, Rayner, for the first time. Rayner is actually a camera operator (he was a student at South Seas and now works on Shortland Street) and although I wasn't working with him in a director/DP capacity on this occasion, I was nevertheless under some stress (not much time, not much money, not much equipment, many hungry mouths to feed quickly) and I got a feel for the kind of personality he has in a working environment. I also observed him for a little bit camera operating for the Dramarama shoot on the same day. I'm stoked to say that I can tell we will be a really good team. He is patient, takes initiative, quick-thinking, and has fantastic people skills. I can't wait to make a film together!

13th October: Our shot lists, storyboards and marked up scripts were due, and I think I was one of the few who actually got it done. I started out with the attitude, "Just get it done; revise it later when there's more time", but of course my nature took over and I had to make it "perfect". I'll still revise it later though; these things are never right the first time around. Plus, my shot list is 84 shots long. That does sound excessive for a short film to be shot in three days, and it is - but having said that, I really don't think this script was written to be shot in 3 days. After all, once broken down, it's 30 scenes long!!! So 84 shots is actually less than three shots per scene on average, and eight of those shots are alternative takes of existing shots anyway, so it's really 76.

Milton is horrified at the length of my shot list, understandably, and insists that I need to "really sit down" and look at the absolute essentials to make sure I don't miss the point of the story. And although I haven't actually changed my shot list yet, I have gone back over the film to find the essentials, and I have discovered that a whole dialogue scene can (and should) be taken out. One of my problems though is that it's some of the cutest dialogue in the whole film, and I don't see how I'm going to convince the writer to let me remove the whole scene. I don't particularly want to, but I have to accept that it merely slows the story down. It adds things to the characters, but they're things that we can do without in this particular story. I suspect this will lead to a particularly challenging writer-director discussion.

15th October: We had a pre-production meeting, led by the production manager. I felt that we did very well. We had had some luck, because our lead actor emailed me that morning confirming that he was definitely available on the dates that we needed him for. If he had not confirmed I think it would have been a very different production meeting! We really didn't get in trouble for anything significant, which was a relief as we had heard that meetings on the previous day had not gone very well.

One thing that happened afterwards though was that Dan approached me and said that he had noticed I was a bit defensive when tutors offered suggestions or asked questions, and that they were only trying to help. I think he was right; I was constantly on guard, thinking that we were going to get into trouble for something, and there were a couple of times when I got slightly (but quietly) irritated as sometimes tutors didn't seem to listen to the answers we gave to the questions. Mostly I think it was just nervousness, but I'm also worried that there was a touch of arrogance too. I don't know where it comes from but occasionally I have to give myself a stern reminder to be humble. I guess I can be relieved knowing that at least I am capable of self-assessing and realising when I might be getting too big for my boots.

16th October: We went on a tech recce to our locations, to introduce the DP and Art Deptmt to the locations for the first time. Time really flew! There was so much I needed to do. I am realising that some of my shots may not work. I really need to be in the location to work out the shots, but it's just not possible. So much still to do!