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!