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???