Professional Practise - Summary Post

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Professional Practise - Secondary Goal - Post 10

Much better on the commitment and motivation and ticking off last week!

There were certainly times when I could have worked a bit more efficiently, but overall last week was good. I almost finished my essay for Critical Film, bought medicine, borrowed books, checked up on travel insurance and ordered business cards for China, blogged about the first draft of Joe's play for the theatre workshop assignment, and bought my boyfriend a birthday present. Now I can tick this blog off the to-do list too, and on Friday I can finally tick it off forever!

Today I will -
Go to class
Pick up a Chinese phrasebook from the library
Buy bread and fruit
Go to the travel agent to pick up my passport and visa (finally!)
Pick up my business cards from the print centre
Finish my Crit Film essay to be handed in tomorrow
make notes about this afternoon's class

And that should put me in a good position to stay in control of the rest of the week :-)

Professional Practise - Main Goal - Post 11

Delegating:

Once again, didn't do any delegating. I did a little bit of work myself, but mostly my Beijing preparations were devoted to the practical issues such as reading about travelling to China, buying medicine, finding out about travel insurance, asking questions about our accommodation etc., rather than preparing for the documentary itself.

Respecting boundaries:

Didn't apply this week as I didn't collaborate on anything with anyone!

One issue that I can imagine will come up shortly though will be working with the writer of 'One Year Later'. Because he is an ex-student, his motivation to work on 'One Year Later' seems to be very low and although he seemed very interested at our first meeting a few weeks ago, he hasn't made any changes to the script since then. He also said he would do it this weekend and email it to me on Sunday night, but that didn't happen. What I face now is the temptation to seize the reigns and make the necessary changes myself, however that would be stealing his work. So I will just have to stay patient for as long as it takes, because if I can't work with that script then what script will I be working with? Probably not one I am a fan of.

Professional Practise - Secondary Goal - Post 9

I have to say that this week I got virtually nothing done towards completing the important tasks on my to-do list.

I was stuck working on the year 3 actors' film all week, yes, BUT there were lots of times where I could have seized the opportunity to sneak into a quiet corner and do my work, but I did not take them. So far my goal of being motivated, committed, and managing my time has been waaayyyy out of my reach, with the only exception being the last 5 hours when I have finally started working hard.

But there's no way of getting around it now; I will HAVE to do better next week!

Professional Practise - Main Goal - Post 10

Delegating:

In my last post I said I was going to make an effort to delegate tasks to prepare for the documentary in Beijing. Basically, I didn't do it. I did do a little bit of work myself by writing some emails to potential subjects in Beijing, but apart from that, nothing. My most recent documentary idea (for documentary class, not Beijing) fell through this week though, so on Tuesday I will be meeting with Scott and Sima to talk about adapting my documentary assignment to cover the Beijing preparations instead. That will mean that it will be much easier to devote my time to Beijing preparations from now on, so I may be doing more delegating starting from next week.

Boundaries:

This week the year 3s worked on the shoots for the year 3 actors' film, with Athina as director. I was filling the role of Director's Assistant, and also took a small turn at 2nd Unit Director as well.

Being the DA mostly meant doing nothing, but at times this was more difficult than it sounds. For instance, being on set close to the director and watching them work all the time with little else to do means there is plenty of time and headspace to think about what I would do in the same situation. I'm generally a pretty outspoken person, so it was often difficult to keep my suggestions to myself. There were a couple of times when I slipped them in if I thought it was timely or important enough, and fortunately my suggestions were appreciated, rather than causing irritation, so I'm pleased that I was able to be tactful and stay quiet or speak at the right moments. I think this is something that would have to be gauged with each different director and situation, and it is important to read the mood well. The other boundary I had to consider was between myself as DA and the people in the production team. As someone who has never been a DA, or worked with a DA, or seen a DA work, this was actually quite difficult to negotiate, because the production roles are called "assistant directors" for a reason. Some of what I was doing intersected with what the 3rd AD and the PA were doing, and I still don't really know what the real difference is with being a DA by comparison.

As for doing the 2nd unit stuff, I think I did quite well when working with Leigh on this occasion, on an interpersonal basis at least. Doing the 2nd unit stuff was a surprise for both of us, and there was no preparation whatsoever, AND we were working with a 2 year old, so basically any attempts to control the situation would have been utterly futile. Since I am normally considered to have control issues, I guess the circumstances saved me from airing these at the time. The work with Leigh was nice and fluid and we felt like a good team, however when we watched the rushes we could see that the product had suffered for the lack of control and preparation.

Professional Practise - Secondary Goal - Post 8

The last week has absolutely flown by. On the one hand, I have been quite proud of the way I have been very focused on the important and very urgent tasks in front of me. On the other hand, I am still quite seriously behind where I should currently be on my to-do list, and it's making me very anxious.

One issue I had this week was energy levels, and this took a serious toll on my ability to work efficiently and keep on task. I came down with a cold late last week, and although I've overcome it now, I've been battling to keep my energy levels up the whole time. I don't know why, but it has been incredibly difficult to get out of bed this week, and also incredibly difficult to stay awake in the evenings, so I have been going to bed early. It must be my immune system struggling, or life catching up to me, or something. I think it's probably also got something to do with the difficulty of the work I am tackling at the moment, especially my documentary work and critical film assignment. The first few steps in any major undertaking such as these are always incredibly difficult for me, and always very slow as well. I haven't had trouble keeping up with other tasks that are well underway as they have become routine. It's just the difficult ones that are exhausting!

Another obstacle has been distraction. When I'm tired, it's very easy to submit to simple distractions, such as hanging out with my boyfriend when I could be researching online. I only did it very little, but it does make a difference in a week where I have been extremely busy.

One way that I can tackle my energy level problem next week is to eat better. This week I had a lot of classes and was going to industry talks and seminars in the evenings, so I ended up eating take-away food every day. I think the high fat content of the food makes me sluggish, and next week I look forward to getting back to eating breakfast every morning, and cooking fresh food for myself, so that I will be less sluggish. Hopefully the improved energy levels will also help me tackle distractions!

Professional Practise - Main Goal - Post 9

I can't say that delegating appropriately or respecting the boundaries between mine and others' roles has really been a big part of my life this week.

I did do some sound post on my TVC with Michael this week, but no challenges of this kind arose. I have no knowledge of sound post, so there was no question of me stepping in and taking over in any way, and there was never any question of what Michael's task was, so I never had to do any delegating.

I did have my TVC feedback session today, but neither of these issues were touched on. My professional practise was addressed, but the thing that came out of it was that I need to be more charming and likeable, which is a separate issue.

As for the next week, I will be needing to focus much more on preparation for the trip to Beijing, which will definitely require strong delegation skills on my behalf. I am too stressed and time poor to do everything myself, so I need to think carefully about what tasks I can ask my team mates to do.

TVC - post 13

Post-sound:

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The post-sound schedule was extremely rushed, as I knew it would be. Poor Michael had two TVCs to do, and a very short amount of time to do them in, plus I was scheduled for classes all week except for Monday, so it was difficult to get time with him. We were able to meet on Tuesday at lunchtime for about 25 minutes (I think?) and then again on Thursday at lunch time for about the same amount of time, so I was very glad that Toetu and I had done so much work on sound already in editing. The time with Michael was really only enough to do some very small tweaks, and the TVC would have been disastrous if I had left the sound work until then.

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The great thing that came out of the post-sound work was what Michael called "cleaning it up a bit". I don't know enough about sound to know what that actually means in practise, but I can certainly here the results, and everything definitely sounded much cleaner and "brighter" as he said. It sounded far more professional once he had brought the voiceover out in particular.

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Screening:

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This morning we had our screening and feedback sessions, which are always very... challenging.

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The screening was a bit disappointing, as I had been so impressed with the results of the colour grade, and yet they did not show up in the screening. Everybody's TVCs looked quite dull. I really think they need to get a better projector and a proper projection screen for that room. How can we learn to make the best possible work when we can't even see the true results of what we are doing?

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Watching the final result on the big screen I also felt that the commercial was quite rushed and I really would have liked to stay on some shots longer. I would also like to have changed the end graphic too; I was going to tackle this previously, but after the colour correction I decided to let it slide, as I felt that the brighter colours now fit well with the end graphic. Watching it on the big screen though really revealed just how garish the graphic was, and that it was far too large for the frame as well.

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Feedback:

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Feedback can be painful, that's for sure.

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The feedback sessions always begin with an opening for the director and each of the HODs to comment on the final product. Usually I go into these things with a huge list of comments that I have about the process and product. This time I was really hoping not to talk too much as I didn't want to set the tone for what everyone else said about it, so I tried to keep my comments quite broad and minimal. Unfortunately, that's what everyone else did too, so I didn't learn much about what they really thought, as I had been hoping.

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Larry went first for the tutors, and congratulated us on the TVC, saying that it was much better than he had expected. He actually surprised me a lot by saying that he had expected it to be a disaster, which confused me because I had never gotten that impression from him beforehand. He also questioned our choice to defocus in the last shot as it could have really stitched us up in the edit. Although it did not affect us at all in the edit - what really stitched us up was the difficulty in getting Paradise's performance - he was right to point out that we had made an uninformed choice, rather than asking our tutors' opinions. He also then commented on Ben's negative attitude, and told him bluntly that if he had been producing the commercial for real he would have fired and replaced Ben for his comments during one of our pre-production meetings. While agree that his particular comments in the pre-production meeting were out of line, and that occasionally he was a bit negative, I also wanted to jump to his defence. Although it would have been way out of line if he were working with someone else, it was only very slightly out of line with me, because of the particular relationship and communication style that we had established betwen ourselves. I found it strangely ironic that there were so many comments about Ben being difficult to work with, and yet for me he was the easiest person to work with out of the whole team.

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Sima also commented that it had turned out better than she had expected, which didn't surprise me, and agreed that the end graphic was definitely too garish for the commercial. She also said that I had hit all of the beats well, but that the commercial was lacking in flair, which was a pretty fair assessment in my opinion. She also said that I needed to allow more room for play, to look for unexpected opportunities to shoot something extra that might be stunning. The really depressing thing about that is that I really really did want to do that, and it was something that I talked about all the way through the project with Ben and Lisa, that we needed to allow time on the day to simply shoot what we saw. But of all the things I planned, the time spent on play was the only thing I let go of on the day, despite the fact that everything was going well and we were ahead of time. Lisa and I had had a disagreement the night before, but we had such a good calm mood going on the day of the shoot that I didn't want to stress her out and destroy it. I was so happy with what we already had that I decided to let it go and relocate, and I really regretted it when the day was done. Sima has always pushed us to remember that as directors we have to be ready and willing to be a bit rebellious, as it is our arses and reputations on the line if we don't get what we need. I agree with that, but I am also trying not to be hard to work with, and the two things seem irreconcilable.

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Dan commented very briefly that he liked our shot choices and simple framing, although some shots could have been a bit more dynamic, and also agreed that he would encourage us to let accidents happen more too. He was beginning to discuss the city shot, and suggested that perhaps more contrast between the two locations could have been achieved with sound. Victor jumped in here, pointing out certain things and decisions that should have been made in sound post rather than editing. Although his comments about sound-post may be useful to carry forward, I felt they were pretty unfair for this project. Given how short the post-sound schedule was, and that my soundie was doing two commercials, and that we were only able to have two 25 minute meetings at lunch time, and that we had never ever done post-sound with anyone but editors before, I'm pretty sure his suggestions were completely impossible, and that the TVC would have been a complete disaster if I had done what he suggested. The amount of trial and error that Toetu and I went through to get the sound cut to the point it was was enormous. Michael and I had minutes to work together, not days. There was just enough time for him to clean up the dialogue and do some EQ and that was all; certainly no time for any creative input or trying out ideas. Fortunately I kept these things to myself, otherwise we'd still be in the session arguing about "what if".

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As the other tutors were speaking quite a lot and Toetu wasn't present, Glenn didn't have a chance to say very much. He did comment on the end graphic, but I've already addressed that.

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Eventually the discussion came back to Dan, asking Ben and I to make a comment on what we had learned in terms of professional practise that we could take forward to our next projects. I was pretty stumped for what to say, to be honest. I feel like so many of the comments and experiences we have a so contradictory that I feel hopelessly confused about it all. In my first year I could have spoken for ten minutes about what I could do better next time. Self-criticism is so easy when you are starting with nothing and have so much to learn. But now? Now I have two and a half years worth of experiences, feedback and self-criticism to look back on, and none of it seems to fit together.

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The response I came out with was that maybe I need to talk less so that I don't overwhelm people, and I should wait for others to talk more. It was all I could think of!

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Sima actually came out in support of being a control freak; she said that that is what she is like, and that it is necessary, but that the difference is that she can get away with it, and that I need to learn to charm people and relate to them as friends. I was greatful for the tiny bit of affirmation; that it's okay to double-check and want to stay in control. But now I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a black hole or something. I have absolutely no idea how to tackle the next stage, because in this case the answer is not 'work harder'.

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I'm at uni, for god's sake; the crew are my friends. How the fuck do I learn to charm people???

Professional Practise - Secondary Goal - Post 7

Using effective problem-solving techniques.

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Well my theory in adopting this as a goal was that I had a problem, and therefore I needed to use effective problem-solving techniques. I didn't really think about this very clearly though before I lay it down. What are problem-solving techniques when editing and the problem is a creative one? I can only think of one technique - trial and error. I suppose consultation with people you trust could be considered another one. Any others? Umm... Well in some instances it would be a case of re-shooting material. This technique is not available to me this time though. I can't think of any more.

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Well, I definitely used plenty of trial and error; that's for sure. Toetu and I spent a great deal of time on our edit, considering the piece is only thirty seconds long, trying out different options to try to get more out of the TVC. There were plenty of errors in our trials, but we have steadily made small improvements, and the TVC appears much better now than in earlier edits.

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I probably could have used consultation with trusted advisors a lot more to be honest, when I think back on it. I showed my TVC to some other students quite recently, and they were very helpful. I had been concerned about my graphic; it was not sitting right with me but I just wasn't sure how I wanted to change it. I had put off making a decision about it by telling myself it would probably look less bright and gaudy once everything had been colour corrected (which it does look much better, I have to say). Honestly though, I shouldn't have put off responding to that niggling feeling, as it is now too late. Two students whose opinions I trust watched my TVC and immediately said to me, "you need to change your graphic." It was as simple as having people confirm my fears, and then straight away I was all-systems-go designing a new graphic. Unfortunately, it came too late; when I went to school to meet Toetu yesterday we discovered that Glenn had already outputted the TVCs for the grade, and it was too late to make any changes. If I had swallowed my pride more quickly (it's hard to show people a piece you're not happy with!) and asked more people's opinions sooner then I would have been able to solve the problem.

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Today I made a to-do list for the next month, until I depart for China. It is long. Very long. So long it makes me feel ill to look at, and ashamed and angry with myself that I have let things get to out of control. With that in mind, my goal for the whole of next month is to maintain my motivation and commitment to the tasks at hand and manage my time accordingly so that I can knock every single item off that list on time.

Professional Practise - Main Goal - Post 8

In many ways, our ability to conform to our own roles without encroaching on the roles of others is shaped by how our colleagues perform in their own roles. For directing students in particular, we are always told in feedback sessions that we are responsible for the end product, no matter what, and that we must double-check everything and leave nothing to chance. We won't always have the luxury of working with people who fulfill our every need and are the epitomy of professionalism, technical skill, and creativity. So what do we do in such a situation? Is there a limit to how much respect we pay to the boundaries between ours and others roles when others are not coming to the party? My instinctive answer to that is to say, 'Stuff the respect. Do what needs to be done to give the project what it needs.' But does everyone see it that way? I'm not sure that even I can fully stand by that statement, especially when no one's being paid. What do you do when your colleague is trying to come to the party but simply doesn't have the technical skill to deliver? It's hardly fair to overstep the boundaries when someone is giving you everything they've got.

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I have found myself in this predicament and haven't known what to do. I could see it coming, and had plenty of patience stored up in readiness, but while this solves the problem of potential personality conflict, it does not solve the problem of giving the project what it needs. I have found myself trying to subtly overstep the mark, provide gentle tips and guidance, or secretly plug the gaps. I must sound incredibly arrogant making the claim that I know how to do someone else's job better than they can do their own, but I'm not trying to make the claim overall and I'm not saying I don't need the person. There are just certain technical abilities that I possess that another does not. Anyway, these sneaky methods are not the way I like to work, and I have not been enjoying it. So I can't say I've been doing well with the respecting boundaries goal lately, but then I may have reached the limit of its application.

TVC - post 12

Well, the colour grade at Digipost happened today. Everyone was stoked to discover that we each had thirty minutes to work with the grader, rather than the 15 or 20 minutes we had been expecting.

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It was really interesting watching the grader work on everyone's TVCs. He was certainly far more sensitive to the subtleties of colour and light than I am, as one would expect from someone whose occupation it is to twist and tweak such things every day. I was really pleasantly surprised by the beauty he was able to bring out in shots that would otherwise have looked plain or dark etc. It was also great as far as revealing the capabilities and limitations of the technology available. Although I did not get a chance to ask why, I was surprised to find that he was only able to use oval shaped windows on the image to adjust specific areas of colour, rather than, say, rectangles. I can't think why this would be, but I should ask someone if I get a chance. I was also surprised to find that colour can't be simply injected into an image, like using the paint bucket tool on Paint. I had thought that if a shot were still then the grader may be able to put in a fill in a given area, like in a graphics program, but it seems not. Once again, there was no time to ask why this was the case. At the end of the session I asked the grader if he had any tips for us to get the most out of the grading experience when shooting in the future. He said to simply expose everything correctly, nice and flat, and then the grader will have everything they need to get the most out of the colours.

TVC - post 11

My, how time flies!!!

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My last post about editing the TVC was very hopeful. There's something lovely and exciting and hopeful about the initial rough cut of a project. ll the problems are blatantly obvious, but the individual disparate shots begin to be shaped into a story for the first time ever. Every hiccup in the cut is part of its beauty. "It's fine, it's only a rough cut. Imagine what it will be like when we've trimmed it all properly and got a good sound mix on there!"

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From the rough cut of my TVC it has mostly been downhill. All of the loveable issues of the rough cut have shown themselves to be much much more difficult to solve than first thought, and a good sound mix has been an elusive beast, and very difficult to tame.

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Unfortunately Sima said no to cutting out the city part of the ad and we ended up spending a huge chunk of our editing time trying different options for the transition from city to forest. Finally we have a transition that is far less jarring than any others we tried, but I still don't feel that it totally works for the ad. We've also spent a lot of time playing with different music options, and the placement of the music within the ad. The mood of the voiceover has been tricky too; the voiceover as it was written was too long for the ad, and has to be very rushed to squish it all in. We've cut out some phrases and played around with the timing, and have managed to improve it greatly, however I would rather take it out completely as I think it is a pure distraction from the images, which tell us everything we need to know anyway. The problem with this is that the structure of the end dialogue (which begins with the word "so") is slightly jarring without the voiceover, and I would also have to run the idea past Sima, as it is quite a big departure from the scripted ad. Fortunately I do have some more time in post-sound to work with Michael and make it work. I think I might end up trying to cut out almost all of the voiceover, and leave only a phrase or two, possibly with an echo effect added.

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The other issue at the moment is the graphic at the end of the ad. I had wanted to include a fern frond in the logo for "Life Cycle", however I couldn't find one that had already been simply drawn, only actual photographs, and I'm not skilled enough with my graphic software to draw one myself from scratch. I tried various effects on the best photograph I found to try use the frond in my logo, and then tried to incorporate it into the text as the "C" for "Cycle", however in order to match the look of the text to the look of the frond I gave it a three-dimensional illusion look, and made it quite bright. Sadly, the effect of this was to make the logo look quite gaudy; much like a heading I might have used for a school project five years ago. It simply looked terribly unfashionable and did not match the simple elegance of the other imagery. Anyway, I was too slow to replace it. I prepared some new graphics (much simpler, more elegant) last night and went in to meet Toetu today to put it in, only to discover that Glenn had already done outputs ready for colour grading at Digipost tomorrow. Noooooo!!!!! I was so disappointed. Fortunately it is probably solvable. After the colour grade we will put it back into Avid, rewrite over the last shot and graphic, and use the graded shot from the previous copy as a reference to colour grade the final shot in the Avid. It's a bit of a mission but it will be worth it to save face!!!

Professional Practise - Main goal - Post 7

In my last Main Goal post I said that I would put more effort into clarity of communication and knowing what I want before I walk on set, so that I am doing everything I can to help the shoot go efficiently and not stress the 1st AD out. I am happy to say that I did both of these things on Tuesday and never saw Lisa stressed (although she may have been hiding it?), and for the first time in my life I finished a shoot early. That's a little off topic from my main goal, but it was a task I lay down for myself, so I thought I'd better comment on it.
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Understanding and respecting boundaries did not actually go superbly well last week I must say, although I'm still in mixed minds as to whether that was my fault or not. Lisa and I had a minor personality clash via email the night before the TVC shoot last week. This is particularly awkward to blog about because Lisa will no doubt read and comment on this blog (hi Lisa!). How do I discuss this objectively and take care not to reopen a rift that seems to have been sealed?

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Basically, Lisa sent out a call sheet on Monday night that, and I noticed a few small issues with it. Although a couple of this issues were of no real consequence, a couple of them could have had serious repercussions for the shoot. Because it was titled "Draft Call Sheet" I assumed that Lisa must have accidentally attached an old draft to the email, rather than her current one, so I responded to the email asking about this and raising the issues that I had noticed, which made Lisa feel that I was questioning her ability to do her job.

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So here's the thing. After every single screen project that we have made at Unitec we have a feedback session with all the screen arts tutors, and without fail, during every single feedback session, the directors are told that they are responsible for everything in the final product and that they must double check everything. It always happens; a tutor will comment on a problem, the director will explain how that problem came about, and the tutors' reponses are always the same: "It doesn't matter, people forget things. You need to check and double check everything. Accidents happen and people forget. You are the one who needs to be sure." In my mind, this is what I was doing when I pointed out the issues to Lisa.

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On the other hand, call sheets are not my job, so am I overstepping the boundaries? But when the consequences of a couple of the issues could have been be really really serious for me, how could I possibly keep quiet?

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Perhaps the issue is the way that I pointed out the problems.

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On the weekend, my boyfriend gently raised an issue with me, pointing out that sometimes I need to let things go. He said that I need to let people be wrong about things, let them make mistakes, or if I hear them ask a question but it's not directed at me then I don't always need to pipe up and answer. He wasn't talking about us, but rather the way I act around other people. I need to be careful not to come across as a know-it-all. Perhaps this was the real issue here. When I pointed out the issues to Lisa I pointed out all of them. What I should have done was point out only the issues that could have had really serious consequences, and let the smaller things slide. That way perhaps she would have taken my concerns more seriously, instead of me coming across as a nit-picking know-it-all when there was no need.

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As for delegating tasks appropiately, I'm starting to wonder whether this was really appropriate for me to add as a main goal, as I don't really seem to come up against any serious problems in this area. I did end up doing all of my own art department prop buying the day before my TVC shoot, but that was not because I had not allowed the art department to do it themselves. I think it must have been a communication issue and somehow they missed out on realising that they were supposed to do it, although to be honest I'm not really sure how that communication issue came about. I don't think I misinterpreted the role of art department on these shoots; I expected them to source the props. Why else would we havemeetings discussing what I was looking for? And they certainly knew the shoot date from the beginning. It may have simply been poor time management on their behalf. My fear is that I may have given off an impression of not trusting them to find the best props, and therefore made them hesitant to go out and get them. This is possible as I was quite particular in our meeting about how the props should be. Nevertheless, this still should not stop them from doing the job. I really should chase them down and have a chat to find out what went wrong.

Professional Practise - Seondary goal - Post 6

My secondary goals for last week were clarity of communication and appropriate attitudes, which I chose in the hope that these things would help my shoot go well on Tuesday.

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Clarity of communication:

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With regard to working with crew, no time was wasted in having to go over and explain things multiple times, no one expressed confusion, and no setups had to be changed, so I can only assume that my communication with the crew must have been clear! These things were also the result of very thorough preparation with my AD and DP.

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With regard to working with actors, I don't think my communication was as clear as it could have been. It was fine when working with Paradise, but with Veronica I think I was trying too hard give her something to work on as an actor, and ended up making my direction quite convoluted. Because the acting needs of the commercial were very simple, I feared it might bore her as an actor, and therefore I made my direction overly complicated, or rather tried to explain a simple thing in an overly complicated way. Although the outcome was good - her performance was exactly what I was looking for - I think if I were an actor in her position I would have found it frustrating trying to strip down what I was saying to find the essence, which is all I really should have said in the first place.

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Appropriate attitudes:

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I think I did fine with the attitudes from the original list (humility, good faith, generosity, can-do, respect for others). I can't think of any slip ups in those areas. Another thing that I should have had on the list, however, was "unfailing positivity". A director won't always get the outcomes they want on a shoot - there always bound to be shots that don't quite fulfill expectations - however I think that if the director and crew have tried everything they can to fulfill the original vision for that shot then the director has a responsibility as a leader to hide their disappointment and maintain a positive attitude at all times in order to keep the energy of the shoot high. I think I had a slip up in this area during my shoot on Tuesday, which although small, is something I would like never to slip up in again. I had been disappointed with y first two shots. We did not have a monitor and in the playback on the small screen of the camera they seemed to be unattractive shots by comparison with what I had imagined. I only mentioned my disappointment once quietly to one crew member, however this is one too many. Although it didn't on this occasion, that kind of thing has the ability to spread through the whole crew and infect the shoot. I need to be better at a) maintaining my poker face and not allowing people to see disappointment, and b) maintaining a constant, forward-looking positive attitude. Instead of feeling disappointment with those two shots, I should have been thinking, "Okay, those two weren't as good as I thought they would be. Now how can I squeeze even more out of my remaining shots and time to make up for it?" The thing is, I was actually falsely disappointed; when I saw those two shots on a larger screen in the rushes room at the end of the day I was actually really pleased with them!

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This week my secondary goal will be "using effective problem-solving techniques". I'm having difficulty editing my TVC to actually look and feel like a TVC. I have a problem, now I have to solve it!

TVCs - post 10

Editing began yesterday!

Actually that's not true, because Toetu actually decided to get in a day early and began labelling clips and rough cutting on Wednesday. I was very impressed! He had made a few different rough cuts to show me as soon as I walked in. Unfortunately for him I got him to begin again from scratch, but it was still useful as it meant that he had already selected the best bits from some of the takes, and we were able to use that.

Toetu and I didn't have a great experience last time we worked together, as he was going through a period of questioning whether he wanted to continue to pursue editing, and I was going through a very high stress time which meant that my patience was thin. Nevertheless, thanks to Toetu's initiative we were able to get off on a very good foot yesterday morning.

Sadly, beginning the cut quickly revealed that a lot of the gorgeous footage we shot on Tuesday will never make the light of day - or rather the darkness of the screening room. We simply could not fit it all into 30 seconds and difficult decisions had to be made.

I was surprised how quickly we came up with a relatively good 30 second cut. I was quite pleased with how dispassionate I managed to be about dropping footage, although I have to be careful not to think about it too much as it's quite painful if I do! Now the really big challenge is creating the right soundtrack for the ad. I spent a long time yesterday flicking through track after track, trying to find the right music for the forest scene. Although I found some tracks which sort of hinted at being the right style and mood, none were quite right so I'm still looking. I might actually ask a friend to write something specifically for the commercial, but that raises the problem of having to be able to describe exactly what it is I'm looking for, and I'm not terribly good at doing that with music. I did find some stuff that we could definitely use for the city part of the commercial though, although to be honest I really want to drop the city section and will ask Sima about it when she gets back from Wellington.

Aside from music we also need to put in some bird song and wind and make sure the sounds of footsteps sync up nicely with the visuals. I also need to record the voice over. I wish it could be done today but unfortunately all the soundies are on shoots this week.

TVCs - post 9

Things can change very quickly when making projects for the screen! So many people and so many elements are interdependent, and if one part changes then the flow on effect goes on forever. Since I am extremely invested in the TVC project, the flow on effect includes my moods as well.

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At the moment I am happy. My shoot is finally over and done with! And tomorrow editing begins.

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Since my last TVC post:

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In my last post I was very happy and contented, having had a good pre-production meeting. The following day, there was another pre-production meeting that left me feeling far less happy and far less contented.

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In many ways I had brought the problems on myself; after all, we are supposed to be making 30 second commercials, and I turned up to my final meeting with a shot list for a 45 second commercial. I have no one but myself to blame for that fact. On the other hand, I felt that it was completely unfair for the tutors to run the pre-production meeting the way they did. I turn up to a pre-production meeting prepared to talk through production issues. I don't turn up prepared to defend the creative story-telling content of each individual shot. Of course a director should be so prepared and have everything so thoroughly thought out that they should be able to do this at any time, but I still don't believe it is fair to ask this of them in a pre-production meeting in front of the whole crew, wasting everybody's time and making me thoroughly embarassed. This is not to say that the feedback the tutors gave me wasn't helpful - in fact they made some very useful comments, criticisms and suggestions and I wish I had heard these things earlier. I simply think these comments, criticisms and suggestions should have been delivered in a different forum, such as a private tutorial, and in fact I am going to ask whether in future we can actually add such a tutorial into the pre-production process, and save pre-production meetings for production issues.

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After the meeting, Ben felt the need to lay into me a bit as well. As soon as he began I stopped him and warned him to rethink how he wanted to have this discussion with me, as he is not my tutor and shouldn't act like it. From then on, our meeting was entirely constructive and productive. This is the advantage of working with someone like Ben, who shoots straight from the hip; you can shoot straight back and know that they're going to take it, not get the sulks.

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On Saturday I had a costume fitting with my actor, Veronica. It went very well, and not only did we come up with a costume, it was also a good opportunity to get to know each other and bond a little bit.

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On Monday I spent the morning frantically running around filling gaps in my props and wardrobe for the TVC; two Grisilinias from Plant Barn, one green plastic water bottle and one pair of brown tramping boots from Kmart. It was quite stressful running around in the morning looking for the best look for the best price, all before 12 o'clock, but it was fun and satisfying too, and I was pleased with the results.

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After the (horrific) doco pitches on Monday I went to view the edit Toetu had made of our camera test footage, but unfortunately when he tried to show me he found that all the media had gone offline. He was able to get a few clips back and quickly cut them together to show me, but unfortunately there wasn't really enough to get anything from it.

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I also tried desperately to trim down my shot list to a 30 second ad, instead of a 45 second one. After a great deal of frustration, Ben happened to come in, and with his help we were able to create something we called the "33 second plan", which may not be 30 seconds, but is a hell of a lot better then 45. Unfortunately, he later came in to reveal that he had been checking the gear, and discovered that Sai Yin had not given us an LCD monitor or a light meter, which would make things painful for us. This announcement also came around the same time as Lisa and I were frustratedly emailing each other back and forth and I was beginning to wonder whether the shoot was going to be a complete meltdown. All in all, a foul end to a foul day.

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Nevertheless, I'm not one to hang on to a bad mood, and woke at Tuesday, excited and optimistic for the shoot. And I wasn't disappointed!

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Not everything was absolutely ideal of course. It was very touch and go on the first shot, with rain starting and stopping every few minutes, and the light changing every few seconds. Plus it was a difficult shot to operate, a difficult shot to act, very cold, and I had no monitor, so it was extremely difficult to know whether I was getting what I wanted. We then moved onto a tracking shot, moving back on a close-up of the actor's face as she walks down a forest path. The showers continued, it was still cold, the timing for the grip was extremely difficult, and still I had no monitor. Worst of all, we were only just too late to catch the flicker of the sun in the background that we had been hoping for. After a lot of rehearsals and a lot of takes we moved on, with me thinking that the shots were turning out decidedly average and that the commercial was going to turn out average too. For the third shot, however, luck and the light were decidedly on our side. Finally I had a monitor, and was feeling much more capable and comfortable as a result. The shot was extremely difficult to get the timing and focus right, but after many many rehearsals all of the elements came together at last, with perfect timing, perfect focus, perfect acting, and stunningly gorgeous light, and the whole crew was over the moon.

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After this shot we moved on to one of the bigger challenges of the day; working with Paradise, a mischievous five year old girl. The shot had to be changed on the spot, as we discovered that we did not have the mini tripod we required in order to get low enough for our planned tracking shot. We also had a different plant than we had planned for, as we had to plant a seedling given to us by the Park Ranger. Fortunately, the ranger allowed us to use the spot on the trail that we had been planning for. In the end I think it was a lucky accident that we could not do our planned shot, as tracking takes a lot of rehearsals and takes to perfect, and we would never have been able to pull it off with Paradise. She was so young, and so cold, and surrounded by so many people, that we were very lucky to get as many rehearsals and takes as we did, and a huge amount of credit is due to Candice and Veronica for getting so much out of her. Candice looked after her in between takes, and Veronica did a great job acting with her during the takes, and we were able to get what we needed, despite a few tears. I think next time I want to work with a young child I will definitely ask to clear the set of everyone but the essentials, as we had a bit of a problem with Paradise showing off during takes, or being completely overwhelmed with attention in between.

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The rest of the shoot continued to be successful, and we got more material than we had planned for, in both the forest and city locations. The team were fantastic and everyone pulled their weight, and the project along really well. I do have a couple of regrets though. I wish I had asked to stay a little bit longer at the forest location and got one extra boot shot, as these are very useful for linking the material, and I also wish I had tried the track zoom in the city. We definitely ended up having time for it, and tried many options. I was thinking of it while we were doing the other options, and wanting to try it, but as we came to the end of the shoot I was increasingly desperate to go to the toilet and ended up completely forgetting about it! I really think we could have pulled it off too, as the camera team were really in form by that stage, and Veronica still could have given us a few more takes. But no use crying over spilt milk. I just hope I don't find myself sitting in the editing room desperate for those shots!

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It was a fantastic shoot, all in all; incredibly stress free, with a good team, good actor, and a bit of luck weather-wise. And I finished a shoot early for the first time ever! The day was capped off superbly by watching the rushes later and discovering that the two shots that I had thought were average actually turned out to be stunning.

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I learned a few things:

• The joy of shooting outside, in open spaces, not hot cramped rooms and studios
• The joy of working with only natural light, and how much faster and more relaxed and beautiful it makes things
• The joy of having an awesome relationship and thorough preparation with my DP
• The fact that it is really really hard to direct without a monitor
• That I feel sorry for camera people, having to try to get the most beautiful shot possible with only a tiny view finder. There is no way I would be able to tell with such a small screen whether the shot is any good.
• That you can only get a couple of rehearsals and takes out of a young child, and that you really should clear the set of people as much as possible
• The value of a great makeup/wardrobe person in looking after actors
• The fact that a 5am call time is actually wonderful. It always takes a really long time to get the first shot away, and working in the cool darkness without the stress of the passing day really helps to have a good, relaxed mood on set. And plus it feels great to finish early.

That's all for now; I can't wait to edit!

Professional Practise - Main goal - Post 6

On the weekend I had my first experience as a 1st AD, helping out on an independent art-house feature film. This was really interesting, as it is rare for me to not be the director on projects. This in itself is a bit weird - the opportunity to study (and practise) directing at Unitec is amazing, but very distorting as well; a small group of students are repeatedly entrusted with the key creative leadership role on projects, despite never in their lives having earned that role, as "real world" directors have. We have to be really careful not to let the director role mess with our heads - and in fact I'm certain that at times it has messed with mine. Yes, we are directors, which quite often means that our opinions override those of everyone else in our team - but we must always be careful not to confuse having the power of decision-making with deserving the power of decision-making. Anyway, I'm going completely off track.

So on Sunday I had to step back and allow someone else to make decisions that would affect me, rather than the other way around. My role was to assist that director to achieve what she wanted, no matter what I thought of it, so in terms of understanding roles and boundaries I was coming at it from an entirely different angle to usual, and it wasn't terribly easy. As 1st AD, one of my key responsibilities was to make the shoot run on time and in trying to fulfill that responsibility it was incredibly difficult not try and "save" Anna (the director) from what I felt were bad choices. I would drop in hints or questions to try and speed things along (which I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to do, although I can't be sure as I've never been a 1st AD before), however I think I sometimes strayed into dropping hints and questions that strayed over the boundary and questioned her creative choices. Although my motivation was to try to catch up time, I think my actions still sometimes intruded on her authority has director, and this is something I need to be really careful about on the next shoot.

One of the great difficulties with knowing how to execute the 1st AD role on Anna's shoot was the fact that Anna is not only the director of the film, but also the writer, producer, production manager (I use that term loosely!) and production designer/art director. I have always thought of the 1st AD as being responsible to both the director and the producer but in different ways. I would expect the 1st AD to have the authority to say to the director, "we HAVE to move on", because they are acting on behalf of the producer, who is paying for the project. Given that producer and director are one and the same in this instance, that authority is removed. She is paying for it (gear hirage, catering, not the crew), so she can spend the time however she likes. Nevertheless, I need to make her move on, as she will not get the film made at the rate she is going. She has scheduled three weeks shooting, and is paying for gear and a DP for that time, and I know that she probably can't afford to add more than a day or two to that schedule. Secondly, she has a volunteer crew and actors who she is going to work very hard over that period, and they are unlikely to extend their commitment to her. If it doesn't get made on schedule, it may not get made at all. Although we finished Sunday's shoot on target if not on time, I know from the other 1st AD (I am doing weekends, she is doing weekdays) that the shoot is now a full day behind target. And it's only been shooting for four days! How can I get this thing back on track, when I have no real authority? How does the 1st AD's role work when no one is being paid and the director controls the show? I am quite lost, to be honest. I suspect the 1st AD role on this shoot will turn into merely calling "turnover" and "action". At least I am learning fo this experience what it is like (ie how frustrating and stressful) for 1st ADs when directors seem not to listen or care about time. This is not to say I will simply let things go because I am told to, but it does mean that I will put even more effort into absolute clarity of communication and knowing what I want BEFORE I walk on set, so that I am doing everything I can to help the set run smoothly and not stress the 1st AD out.

Professional Practise - Seondary goal - Post 5

Well, my secondary goal this week has been "focus on the most important task at hand, even though it may not be crying out as the most urgent".

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As it happens, this week the most important and the most urgent tasks were always one and the same, and I'm pleased to say that I've been knocking them over well.

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Despite having let my documentary research slide quite seriously over the holidays and first week of term, I actually did manage to catch up and was ready for the pitch on Monday. As it happens, I didn't actually get to pitch, because we ran out of time in class, but nevertheless I feel good knowing that I was ready. Saying that I was ready to pitch, though, is not actually the same as saying I was up to date with my work; I would much prefer to be further along that path at the moment, as even though I have clear ideas (as needed for a pitch), I don't actually have ANY solid material that I could put on film at all, as I will need for the treatment.

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Apart from doco, I have also been working on TVC as usual this week, and due to the amount of work I did on it last week, there has been no stress for me (although I feel sorry for Lisa, who is still waiting to get signed and sealed permits for our locations).

Since next week will include my actual shoot for the TVC - finally! - I think I shall have two secondary goals next week:

1. Clarity of communication - this will be vital in order to ensure the set runs smoothly and efficiently, and I get the most out of my actors and crew. I need to always remember that the crew do not have my vision for the bigger picture in their heads, and therefore I cannot expect them to be able to make it happen without absolute clarity of communication and attention to detail.

2. Appropriate attitudes (humility, good-faith, generosity, can-do, respect for others) - This will be essential to ensuring a positive, happy, calm and constructive mood can be maintained on set all day, so that people will enjoy their work and feel like valued members of the team. People will work harder if they are happy, and will hopefully finish the day still willing to work with me again.

Website

I made a website! I keep yo-yoing between being proud and embarassed. I tried to keep the wanking on to a minimum, so I guess I can be proud, but then perhaps its very existence over-rules with embarassment. Oh well, it's done now.

www.rosedamon.com

TVCs - post 8

I did decide to go with the plan from my last blog for a while, but have since changed the plan and ditched the track zoom due to time and the unlikelihood that we will pull off a track zoom that looks really good. I will now just use a track, in the same position and extremely sped up in post.

In my last blog I was expecting to have to move locations, however it seems this is actually impossible due to the difficulty of getting permits in the city, so we will have to stick to that particular location. This is a pity, as on my most visit to the city I found that I actually preferred a different crossing about 200 metres down the road, on the corner of Quay St and Queen St, or even on a different corner of our same location. But never mind, I still like the spot we've got.

Speaking of permits though, I'm beginning to worry. Even though we had positive responses from both locations neither of them has given us the final word that we can actually shoot there, and there is less than a week to go!

Last Friday we had our first pre-production meetings for the TVC. I have had a tendency with past projects to be quite defensive in pre-production meetings. I think I have habitually walked into these meetings with the expectation of getting hammered, and haven't always handled this with the maturity it calls for. For last Friday's TVC however I was determined not to let this be the case. One of the things I really want to focus on this year is having people actually like working with me, as this was not always the case last year, and so a big part of this is not acting like a bitch in pre-production meetings. So as I got onto my bike to ride to Friday's meeting I started whispering a little mantra to myself; "don't be defensive, don't be defensive..." and kept saying it all the way to the meeting. I'm a weirdo; I know. But hey, it worked! Maybe I'm actually starting to grow up a bit. Normally because of my defensive attitude I get my back up when people raised concerns that I am already aware of. I think my internal reaction has always been, "Do you think I'm stupid? Do you think I didn't realise that? Don't you think I'm working on that?" The truth is that that reaction IS stupid. This time around I took the comments much better; instead of getting annoyed about people stating the obvious, my reaction (internal and external) was to say, "yeah I agree that's a problem, and we're actually looking at options x, y and z to solve it at the moment." I left the meeting feeling reaffirmed; it felt good to know that I was already dealing with the most important issues.

Also since my last post, Ben and Lisa and I went on another tech recce to our forest location. I really thoroughly enjoyed this recce. Lisa stepped in patiently as an actor for our test footage, and Ben was very very easy to work with. I think we must have a similar communication style and temperement, and we tend to agree on what we think looks good, or what we think is important. The test footage we got looked really good, considering it was handheld, and the location and the natural light were gorgeous. I am just desperately hoping that we have sun on the shoot day, as the sunlight made everything stunning. The weather report is not very supportive at the moment though; showers apparently :-( But there's plenty of time for that to change between now and then.

I was thinking about what I would do if it were raining on the day though... there's no doubt that grey skies will ruin our sweeping view almost entirely. It's a good thing we're shooting it at sunrise though, as even on a day of showers, out best chance of capturing that view in the sun will be at sunrise. In case it does rain I am thinking I will take my rainbow umbrella and incorporate it in, to add some brightness and joy, because the lighting will be very grey. I will have to change the shots a bit to accommodate this though, but there is not point fighting the weather. I will have to make a call on this very early in the day though; if she's going to have the umbrella then she's got to have it in every shot.

Casting has been finalised for the TVC, which is very exciting, but I am paranoid something will go wrong and one of the actors will drop out, as I have learned from experience that actors are not necessarily to be trusted. My big worry now is getting costumes sorted. All hopes are pinned on the actors having something appropriate in their own wardrobes, as the costume store at school has virtually no contemporary clothing and no children's clothing whatsoever. Plus we have no budget at all for wardrobe :-(

I'm also a little bit concerned about getting a good plant. We were hoping to get one from nursery near the Arataki Centre, but haven't been able to speak to them to organise a time to look at their plants, and tomorrow afternoon will be my last chance to go out there before the shoot. If worse comes to worst I will just have to get one from Plant Barn.

TVCs - post 7

On Tuesday we had to make a full treatment presentation to the class and tutors, with idea being that we should try to inspire confidence in the "agency" and "client" by demonstrating that our ideas were effective and well thought out, and our planning was thorough and organised.

I'm not very good at time management. I never have been. Although I am proud of the improvements I have made in time management while at Unitec, I am still pretty bad, so of course my presentation was prepared at the last possible minute. This meant that I put a lot of pressure and stress on myself and on my production manager, and also did not have time to print a full colour copy of my treatment for submission. I heard that it had cost someone $63 to do theirs, and decided it was not worth the time as I want to keep my budget for things that will actually affect the outcome of my TVC! I later discovered though that it would actually only cost me about $20 because I have fewer pages, so I may go back and print a colour copy today.

One of the ways I am bad at time management is that I speak for a really really long time without even realising it. Poor Lisa had prepared for this by making a countdown list that she would cross off as I went, so that I could see this and not go over time, however once I began to speak I completely forgot about this and didn't even look down once. I felt like I had only been speaking for about ten minutes (out of a possible 25 total that should also include Q&A) when suddenly Dan said, "You have two minutes left". I was very annoyed at myself. Half of the reason for doing a presentation is so that you can receive feedback on your ideas, but I talked through all my feedback time! As a result there was only time for a couple of issues to be raised:

1. Brent pointed out that my choice of forest location did nnot have very iconic looking forest. I definitely agree with this and it was one of my major concerns in choosing the location. I had been looking for really old forest - I wanted tall, majestic, impressive trees. But the fact is that there is virtually no old forest at all around Auckland, and the little patches that do have very tall trees are completely inaccessible for our camera crew.

2. It was pointed out that we probably would not be able to see the lines of the bus shelter in our city location, given my choice of shot. This is also a concern I raised with Ben, and I think the tutor was probably right. We would be unlikely to see them unless we were at a very low angle.

3. Our planned track zoom from across the road from the character is unlikely to be effective, as track zooms depend on a clear change in perspective for their effect. This is not something I had thought of, and I am glad it has been pointed out now.

4. If this ad is shown publicly, we would somehow need to get release forms for any members of the public that we see in the city shot.

And as far as I remember, that was all there was time for after all my blabbing on :-(

So, my reaction to point 1 is - yes, it's unfortuately not iconic forest, but it's the best we're going to get and we will shoot it in ways that will enhance its advantages and hopefully hide its disadvantages.

In reaction to points 2 and 3, I have three options: change my shot, or change my location, or both.

At this point I think changing location is almost a certainty, as Lisa has heard back from the council about a filming permit and they have said we cannot film in peak hour, which is when we really need to film in order not to cut down our time in the bush. If I stick with the track zoom shot (which I originally said I wanted to begin as a mid-shot, but now I am leaning towards a long shot) then I am unlikely to use one of the key advantages of the location - the lines on the roof, so I might as well move to somewhere where we can film at the time we need to.

The problem with track zooming from across the road is also a serious one. I could look for a location with a pedestrian crossing that is merely across a tiny one way street, but I can only think of one place, near Sky City, and I don't think the background would serve my purposes very well. Alternatively, I could change the shot to something else, and at the moment I am thinking about a time lapse with slow track in on the character. If I can get the actor to hold very still then I can speed up everything around her, which would also be an effective way of showing the business, stress, and overwhelming nature of the city, as well as giving a sense of a machine-like, inhumane quality. It would also solve the problem of getting release forms from the public or filling the frame with extras.

OR... and I've just had this idea as I write. Maybe I could combine the two (track zoom plus time lapse) and I could turn my actor around and place her back to the crossing. I would place her at the lights opposite the ones I had originally planned, so that I could still have the lines of the roof in the background. With her facing the opposite direction to everyone else it helps to set her apart from the crowd (which I have been concerned about), it solves the problem of releases (as everyone will be facing away AND sped up), I get to do my track zoom close to the character, so that it will be effective, AND having everyone's backs to camera will dehumanize them and add a sense of the loneliness one feels in crowds. Yes, I like it!

One problem remains. I still probably won't be able to film in that location at the time I want. So I may still have to move.

Anyway, I must discuss the potential of this idea with Lisa and Ben. Ben especially, as I need him to save me from doing anything super cheesy, as I have a tendency to do, and my impulsive ideas are not always my best. Still, I have high hopes for this plan...

TVCs - post 6

Well, I've done a fair bit of work on my TVC over the last couple of weeks! I think I shall try to briefly recap on the work I've done here, and then write about Tuesday's presentation in a seperate post.

The main issues that I tackled over the "holidays" (ha!) were casting and locations; and I'm glad I did, because these things take a very long time! Even though Lisa and I worked very hard on them, we are still not locked down.

Locations:

I did quite a lot of driving around in the Waitakeres, stopping anywhere I could find that might have a view or good bush trail. It was a pretty enjoyable experience, although I did get mighty sick of getting in and out of the car. In the end, though, it was actually the first location I visited in the Waitakeres that I turned out to be the best overall. There were others that I would like to be able to take elements from, but it's just not possible for us to have more than one relocation in a single shoot day. So the location I really liked was the Arataki Centre and Plant I.D. Loop on Scenic Drive, not far from Titirangi. Lisa was away in Kerikeri, so I emailed her about it. I'll put a chunk of the email here to explain what the location is like:

The Arataki Visitor Centre is on Scenic Drive, about 6km from Titirangi. Some info about it here: http://www.arc.govt.nz/parks/our-parks/arataki-visitor-centre/ and I also have a brochure about it.

Advantages from a shooting or visual perspective:

• Absolutely stunning views, including many choices of perspective (multiple decks, plus a lookout 5 mins walk from car park)
• Has decking to look at the views from, which is easier to lay tracks on than uneven ground
• Has very well maintained walking tracks around it (once again, easier to work with than uneven ground)
• Lush green native forest, plenty of ferns
• A "plant ID trail" which already has pre-planted native seedlings along it, which we could pretend to replant

Disadvantages froma shooting or visual perspective:

• All the forest is quite young - there is a lack of large impressive trees.

Even though this is only one disadvantage I see it as being quite important. :-(

Advantages from a production perspective:

• Heaps of car parking
• Toilets
• Picnic tables
• Shelter in case of bad weather
• They have a lecture room which they might let us use for storage/green room?
• The people who run the place are likely to be very sympathetic to the values of our project (ie conservation)

Disadvantages from a production perspective:

• It's 25 minutes drive away

Although, as I said, we have not got this location locked down, it is in fact going very well. Lisa has been corresponding with Auckland Regional Council and they even suggested that we could plant one of the seedlings from their nursery.

As for the city location, we have applied for a permit for the corner of Customs and Queen Streets, which is the busiest pedestrian intersection in Auckland, and possibly the country. It's not going as well, because they have said that we could not film during peak hour; we would have to do it at least an hour earlier. I think we may have to find another place, because we really can't afford to cut our time in the bush short by an extra hour.

Casting:

I have offered the role of the woman to Faye Smythe, a particularly stunning well-known New Zealand actress. I have seen her working with John Callen, and I was extremely impressed with how well she took direction, plus she has a great look and beautiful voice for this character, and a very gentle style of expression and movement. She has responded saying she is very keen to work on it, but we are waiting on confirmation of her shooting schedule for a film she is committed to in May. I have my fingers tightly crossed!!!

In case Faye is unavailable, we have also been auditioning other actors for the part. It's been quite frustrating, because many have cancelled at the last minute and not turned up to the audition. Some of the women have not looked like their headshots (which isn't altogether surprising) and some of them have had very flat, wooden expression. One girl turned up utterly unprepared; she had not read the script or done the preparation I asked, and did not even seem aware that the audition was for a TVC. Another girl -poor thing - had her agent burst into the middle of the audition. I have no idea what he was thinking! We had already been in the audition room for about 5 minutes when there was a sudden loud knock at the door and he barged in, introduced himself as her agent and apologised for being late. The girl and I were completely gobsmacked. I asked him to wait outside until we were done. Despite the disasters, there was one woman who I was very impressed with. She had a lovely voice and expression, and seemed to intuitively connect with the character, and was able to bring her to life. Although we are continuing auditions tomorrow, I will probably offer this lady the role if we don't find anyone amazing. I will just have to add a hair and makeup artist to the team if we do, but I probably should be doing that anyway.

As for children, we only had three come in. One little boy was far too young, far too shy and dependent on his mother. I felt sorry for him being brought in to us, because he was clearly not ready for this kind of thing. His mother was convinced that he was the most beautiful talented child in the world though. She would have been an absolute nightmare on set. Poor kid! Another lady brought her little girl in too. The girl had just woken up from a nap, so was grumpy and not in the mood, but may have been okay at a different time of day - it was hard to tell. It was obvious that she didn't want to be there either though, so I wouldn't have been comfortable casting her. One other little girl, on the other hand, was perfectly happy with it all. She was even happy to come into the audition room by herself, and was not shy of the camera. She was a happy, cheeky, independent girl with a lot of energy, and cute too, so I will probably cast her.

In the future though we need to remember never to audition young kids around the 4pm-5pm mark, as they are definitely very tired at this time. I'll do mornings for kids in future! It's just hard because their parents may not be free at that time, even though the kids are.

Professional Practise - Seondary goal - Post 4

I think I did pretty well on my secondary goal over the holidays - to "follow through on commitments made". There was one very serious shortcoming though, and that was that I did not follow up on my last point (to work on my doco) at all. Not one minute of research.

The problem is that I have a bad habit of taking on additional commitments before I have followed through on my original ones. In this case, I decided to work as a 1st AD on an independent art-house feature. The feature has almost not budget, almost no consistency in the crew, is not yet fully cast, and the director is also her own producer/production manager, location manager and art director, and has only brought me on two weeks before the first shoot date. Adding to that the fact that I have never been a 1st AD before, and neither has the other girl I am job-sharing with, it is clearly a very big commitment, that in some ways I regret taking on. It is a really interesting and challenging experience, but I am running a serious risk of making my other work substandard, which is a pretty serious concern for me. I think my TVC work is safe - and therefore I won't be letting others down - but I do not want to waste the opportunity I have with the documentary project, as documentary is something I really enjoy making and watching and I think it holds great opportunities for us as filmmakers and human beings.

With that in mind, my secondary goal for this week is not from the list on Blackboard; it is to "focus on the most important task at hand, even though it may not be crying out as the most urgent". I really need to get my priorities straight!!! I have to pitch on Monday... Help!

Professional Practise - Main goal - Post 5

Well, I'm pretty sure I've respected boundaries and delegated appropriately over the last couple weeks. I haven't made a specific concerted effort, but perhaps as more time passes I get more mature and that is what helps to improve this area. Or maybe I'm being too soft on myself. Hmm... look for the slip ups....

Well I went location scouting without Lisa in the holidays, and even though we planned that we would generally do it together I still think it was good that I did it as she was away in Kerikeri and would have come back to a huge amount of stress if I had not. So I'm going to say that's a tick.

On the other hand, I did leave it entirely up to Lisa to wrangle the potential actors into audition slots. It was a huge relief having someone to field all the preliminary questions and slot them in, but perhaps I ask too much of her by getting her to do this? It's a grey area I think, since we have no casting director. Lisa is Producer/PM and 1st AD and I am director, so it doesn't fall under either of our roles really, but then again it could be either of us. So perhaps I have slipped up with my appropriate delegation goal in this instance. Since Lisa is probably going to read this blog I think I will put the question out there:

Lisa, do you think it was appropriate for you to organise the auditionees, or do you think I should have taken that on? Do you agree that it is a grey area or do you think there is a correct answer?


One of the most important reasons why I need to be a master of delegating tasks appropriately is to ensure that I don't ask too much of people and cause them to burn out. Given that Lisa is fulfilling two roles on my TVC this is an important concern. Lisa's help with organisation and correspondence has been absolutely wonderful so far, but there have been times when I have been worried that I may ask too much of her. That being said, I can't think of a specific time (other than possibly with the auditions) where I have asked something inappropriate. Perhaps the real problem lies in not knowing who our year 2 production co-ordinator was, as Lisa was unable to pass on and delegate the tasks herself. Now we finally know who our co-ordinator is, but most of the work is done! Lisa, any thoughts on feeling over-worked?

My positive collaboration with Ben, the DP, has continued so far. The real test will be on set though; the pressure of time and quality will reveal the shortcomings in our communication.

This weekend I participated in the 48 Hour film competition with a team from Unitec. This was a fantastic experience on the one hand, as there was a lot of fun had and I was extremely proud of our achievement in coming up with the goods in such a short space of time. On the other hand, it was also a very concerning experience. People who I normally get along well with on a day to day basis can suddenly feel like thorns in one's side, and I have no doubt at all that others felt the same about me. Although Milton teased me relentlessly last year about being uptight, I always found it more funny than worrying, but my reaction of mild semi-panic to the realisation that I would not be able to see what the images we were filming looked like truly revealed how strong my control issues actually are. I don't think control is actually a bad thing when making a film, so the question is... can one be in control without having control issues?

I'm going off topic, but it's still a valid question.

TVCs - post 5

I can't believe it. I just wrote a whole long post about TVC and when I tried to publish it, it said "service unavailable". I HATE THIS STUPID SLOW INTERNET CONNECTION!!!! *deep breathing...* I live in the accommodation village on campus and our internet connection cuts out all the time. It's ridiculous. This is a university for heaven's sake!!! You would think a good internet connection would be a priority!!!!

Anyway, I shall try to rewrite at least some of what I had before.

I was talking about the fact that I hadn't worked on the TVC very much this week because I had other school work I had to prioritise, but I did go tramping in Coromandel over the weekend.

The tramping trip was great but frustrating, because I saw lots of things and places that I would have loved to include in my TVC, but of course they're in Coromandel, so it's never going to happen. Trees... views... plants... Even though I can't have them, at least the trip did give me an even clearer idea of what I am looking for from my location. And I also took a few photos as visual references.

Apart from that, I slightly updated my treatment and sent it to Sima to be uploaded on to Blackboard, and had a conversation with Lisa about what we want to work on over the holidays, which I have already written about in my last Professional Practise post.

Professional Practise - Main goal - post 4

As per last week's post, there's really not much to write on the subject this week, as I didn't really do any collaborating or working in teams.

The only thing that was relevant to this goal was a conversation yesterday afternoon with Lisa, who asked me what I would like her to do over the holidays. I asked her to please get the contact details of the year 2 directors who will be helping me with art department, and to help me disseminate our casting brief, now that we finally know the actor payment details. I also promised her I would go location scouting this week (she will be away from Auckland, up north) so that by next week we can begin locking locations down. We will also organise auditions for next week.

As far as I can tell, that's a tick in the box for delegating tasks appropriately, don't you think?

Professional Practise - Secondary goal - post 3

FAIL.

Not only did I not get the assignment in by 11am, I didn't even get it in by 1pm! It won't matter though - the box hadn't been cleared. Maybe assignments are no longer due by 1pm? No one has mentioned it for a long time; I just always assume they are because that was the way it was in first year.

ANYWAY I did not succeed in achieving my goal. I did not realise until it was too late that the shift I had accepted a few weeks ago - to work at the Tua fight - was actually on the night before the assignment was due, and would be eight and a half hours long (they never tell us finishing times; only starting times). I did try to overcome this problem! I took my laptop and asked my manager if I could sneak off and work in the store room late in the night, which I did for an hour and a half. Anyway, no excuses, I did not meet the deadline simply because I did not start working on the essay early enough. We had been told about it in about the second week of term for goodness sake! And it hasn't even been a hard term. But I will do better next term! I have to - it will be cut short by about a week as I am going to China.

We're probably not supposed to be continuing these blogs through the holidays, but I'm going to have a goal for the holidays anyway: "following through on commitments made".

And these are my commitments for the "holidays":

• Ask actors to be in our 48 hour film festival team.
• Meet with 48 hour team and submit application by no later than the 8th of April (closing date is the 9th).
• Go location scouting this week until I find at least one (and preferably two) location of each kind (I need one city location and one bush location) that I would be happy to film in, so that I can offer them up to Lisa to work on securing.
• Post around my casting notice to various sources and organise auditions for next week.
• Work on my website and create a section where I can put information about the TVC for my crew.
• Research my documentary idea to the point where it will be ready to pitch by the pitching class (first Monday of term), not the actual pitch date. Think of at least one alternative idea, in case the first one is not feasible, and begin researching.

I can think of more things that I would like to add, but I should give myself a fair chance of actually achieving these things so I will stop there.

Professional Practise - Secondary goal - post 2

My secondary goal for this week was punctuality. I wanted to be at every class on time.

I have to say, I made no improvement this week on punctuality. I wasn't late for any classes, but I was only one minute early, or exactly on time, for three of them. And while that's not technically late, I wouldn't consider it punctual either, because it's so close to being late. 5 minutes is a good safety window for a class, so I would coonsider that to be 'punctual'. So all in all, no improvement on that goal, although nothing to beat myself up over either.

Next week my secondary goal will be "meeting project deadlines", as I have an essay due on Thursday which I haven't started yet, and it will definitely be a good challenge to try and get it in on time. And just to add to that, I will consider success to be handing the essay in before 11am (rather than the due time of 1pm) and NOT doing an all-nighter the night before. We shall see if I can do it!