2nd year short film shoot

Well, my 2nd year short film shoot is over. What a relief!

The lead up to the shoot was absolute chaos. Somehow, from having everything well and truly organised and under control, the whole thing flipped and suddenly nothing was certain.

Jesse sent a text to reconfirm with one of our locations the Thursday before shooting, and received a reply saying that they had changed their minds and actually the day we were planning to shoot was the most inconvenient day of the month. Having confirmed the other two days with our other location, and having no flexibility due to actor and DoP availability, this sent me into a small panic.

And then, less than 24 hours after receiving this news, we were told that our young actor, Hamish, would have to leave at 5pm on one of the days we were shooting - a huge problem given how many scenes in the script take place at night!!!

So we went into a flurry of activity trying to find a new location - Jesse sent an email through Blackboard to everyone in SPASA, and I handed out 220 flyers to students around campus, appealing for a new location.

Eventually the problem was sorted by the original location agreeing to let us use their place on a different day, and our main location agreeing to change days. This was a pain for scheduling and art department and for the lady whose house we were filming in, as it meant splitting up the time spent filming in her place. Nevertheless, the problem was solved, much to our relief, and we were able to schedule around Hamish having to leave early on the Wednesday.

Thank goodness I have a great production manager in the form of Jesse! The fact was we couldn't have foreseen the problems, but we did overcome them.

On the Saturday before filming, I held a rehearsal with my actors. Rehearsal is actually not the right name for it; it was just a session. I had the two actors come to my flat to talk about the script, the filming process, try on costumes, and bake cookies. I had decided that I didn't want to rehearse beforehand as the actors I had cast seemed so close to the characters already, and I didn't want them to get bored of the film before we even got going. Particularly with a child actor I did not want to wear out his enthusiasm for the scenes, and I knew that we could not work out blocking without being in the location or having the props anyway. Furthermore, since I had a kid to work with, and wanted to make the process fun, I decided not to do the script work seated around a table, but rather have the actors bake a batch of cookies together as we discussed the story and characters. The session was their first opportunity to meet, and only the second time they had each met me, so I wanted something that would help us make friends. Since I was also managing the wardrobe on the film (all the costume students were too busy), I had the actors try on costumes while the cookies were in the oven.

I definitely think that this session was a success, as it achieved all of my aims; the actors were able to bond with each other and with me, I was able to ensure that they knew the story of the film thoroughly, was able to sort out their costuming, and had the opportunity to make sure they knew what to expect from the filming process. I also had the opportunity to meet and chat with Hamish's mother, which ensured that she also knew what to expect, and agreed to play a small role in the film. In hindsight though, I think I should have had an extra session before filming, with Paul, the adult actor.

I found on set that Hamish was able to incorporate directions very easily into his acting, and performed extremely well. Paul, on the other hand, obviously needed to have some more guidance at an early stage. He had obviously given the role a lot of thought, however he seemed to be taking it from a director's perspective and thinking about what effect he wanted to creat for the audience. He had quite obviously been rehearsing by himself, probably in front of a mirror, and had already developed and fixed a performance. As such he was able to understand but not incorporate my directions on set, as he was already too fixed in a habitual performance. I think it was probably over-confident and foolish of me not to schedule a one-on-one script analysis session with him, and ask him not to rehearse on his own. The thing that made him so excellent in his audition - his preparation - turned out to be our greatest problem on set, and I was almost never happy with his performance.

The shoot itself was mildly chaotic. The first day, a Tuesday, was quite a satisfying one. The schedule went entirely out of the window, due to the weather playing tricks on us, and we actually came away thinking that we were ahead of schedule. How wrong we were.

On the Wednesday we were in a different location, filming in the bedroom and bathroom of a house in Waterview. I learned very quickly the effect that a small location has. It's difficult to manoevre lights and equipment, and the room soon grows very hot. Sooner rather than later, the crew start to get very grumpy.

This included me. I got very frustrated with the camera crew in the first half of the day. Many of our shots were to be used very quickly in montages, and were not key parts of the plot. I felt that it was good enough to light them and shoot them well, but the crew insisted on making each a work of art, which inevitably took a very long time. The result was that many shots had to be cut, not enough time could be spent on scenes that really mattered, and our plans to relocate to our primary location at the end of the day had to be abandoned as we would have lost the light before even arriving. This also put a lot of pressure on our final day of shooting.

Our final day was a Friday - we could not film on the Thursday as our DoP, Sophia, was in Wellington for the presentation of awards for a competition she had entered.

I went into Friday determined to finish shooting the film with as little compromise as possible (very little compromise was possible anyway - most scenes were only one shot long), and determined to be fun and friendly on set. The stress of the second day had meant that I had no sense of humour on set - I was certainly no angry dragon, but I was certainly no fun either. Conscious that a happy crew who like their director are more likely to work hard and listen to that same director, I tried very hard to be relaxed on set. I brought extra food for the crew, and baked cookies myself that morning to share around. I made sure to step light and speak light, and asked RJ to bring a CD player so that we could have some music while unpacking the van and setting up etc.

Unfortunately I found the mood impossible to sustain. I had forgotten to bring the entire costume bag. Then we ran into some very time-consuming problems with light in the morning that required important changes. And once again I found that too much time was being spent making good images only slightly better. The fact is that I do work well under pressure - I'm certainly very productive - but unfortunately I'm not very fun.

When our lunch break finally came (somewhere around 6) we were roughly two hours behind schedule. I cut a few shots, and took the opportunity to meet privately with the AD, Sophia, and the gaffer, to inform them that from then on we would be working strictly to time, rather than to our desires, as unless we got all of the remaining shots, much of what we had already worked so hard on would have to be cut.

Chaos resumed, but for the most part working strictly to time was a success. We were able to power through a few important scenes at least, and my stress levels eased. As the night continued however, Sophia became more and more tired and would ignor the AD and I more often, and poor Hamish, our young actor, was falling asleep on set between takes. We fought through, and with the help of a couple hours of overtime, were able to cover all of the main story points, although not all of the shots.

I have learned many many things.

A good, patient, location host is completely invaluable.
Even someone who is fantastic at their own specific job will be hugely detrimental to a crew if they are not good a communicator too.
Children are fabulous actors.
Working quiet on set is absolutely necessary for everyone's sanity and speed.
Never try to compete with the sun.
The more fun you can be when things are going well, the more seriously people will take you when things are not going so well.
There is no such thing as ahead of schedule.
A good AD is totally invaluable.

Sometimes it is necessary to be a dictator.

In my eagerness to make use of the expertise of others in my crew and keep everyone happy, I initially allowed a lot of freedom for the camera department to continue to improve the look. Quite often I would see an image I liked, and wanted to shoot with, but they would not listen to me and would have some idea of how to improve it. It cost me a lot of time. I think there were many times when I needed to trust my own instincts better - if I liked what I saw then I should have made sure that that was what we went with. I should have paid more respect to my own decision-making ability, knowing that as the director I am the one who sees the big picture, and sometimes the smaller picture has to suffer for the sake of the whole. In other words, I needed to ensure that my decisions were respected - I needed to dictate a bit more.