Questions On The Sequences 2 - A Post By Mori

Here are some more questions on the production of our film.

 

1. How did you manage the group dynamics, equipment and resources, interim deadlines and the necessary collaborative nature of film making?

The group dynamics worked very well, we got to decide who we worked with and through out the year we have managed to see within the group who we would work best with. We also worked with lots of communication, for example if someone had another commitment they would just send a quick email to tell them and then the other member of the group would fill in for you on that day and you would fill for them the next time. We also managed the equipment well, usually we both filmed and decided before hand what shot each other would do, this made filming quick and efficient. I found that I could make interim deadline fairly easily, most of them were on the blog which I enjoy using as it is easy to use and I feel that I need to write on it after I have done anything significant towards the film.

 

2. What health and safety and logistical problems did you solve?

 

I felt that we did not have very many health and safety issues during the filming of this piece, the only parts which could have proved slightly dangerous were in car scene and the torturing scene.

We avoided danger by acting sensibly in the car and wearing seatbelts. And we avoided danger in the torturing scene developing a danger word system in which the actor being tortured just said the word ‘help’ and then we stopped whatever was happening, this meant we instantly knew and could stop quickly.

The only real logistical problem was finding a car and someone to drive it but in the end we thought to ask a matron from a boarding house and it proved very easy.

 

3. How did you organise your human resources – the people involved in the production?

 

At the beginning of the course we picked the actors which we needed for our piece and asked them if they wouldn’t mind featuring in it.

Once we had finalised who was in our play we talked it through with them and found out when they were available and when they may need to act in their films. We were then able to start shooting our piece. Before each filming session we would sit the actors down and inform them of the different scenes they would be doing and exactly what we required of them in terms of movement and acting. We also went through it with them when we arrived at the location where we were filming and did dry runs before actually taking the real shot, this meant that they knew exactly what to do and this also gave us what we needed and nothing went wrong.

 

4. How did you manage actors, locations, costumes and props? Remember that deciding NOT to use a particular strategy [e.g. not to use any props] is also a creative decision.

 

I have discussed how we managed our actors in the previous question. The location, props and costumes where all decided on upon before filming anything. The locations required a bit of research, we went out with a camera and took films and pictures of possible locations and then reviewed them in the class room, managing to pick the perfect locations around the school campus for the particular scenes. We also did much research for the torturing scene, for this we mainly used the web to look at different methods of torture and what we needed to look the most effective. We looked at hanging but decided that it would be too difficult to pull off and too dangerous so we decided to have a drowning scene and we found the perfect prop, a clear box which could be filled with water. We also found metal chairs, which were perfect for the torturing as it meant that it looked uncomfortable for the victim and also cheap as if they didn’t care what he had to sit on. Costumes were very simple for this piece as we only needed two different ones, the boys clothing which is anything that we might wear ourselves and then the three kidnappers who we decided to dress in black suits which were also easy to locate we simply used our smart uniform from Sunday School, we were also going to give them shades but we thought it would be slightly to unoriginal and cheesy!

5. How did storyboarding and creating a shooting script work in practice? Did you make creative decisions to depart from the original plan? For what reasons and with what outcomes?

 

Storyboarding was an essential part of producing this piece; it gave us a firm base to stand on. It meant that we knew exactly which shots to do before starting to film, it also meant when we went out to film it could happen very quickly as we knew the exact shots to take once we arrived. Although the storyboard was incredibly useful we didn’t stick to it exactly, for example when designing the torture scene we weren’t fully sure what we were going to do, so we decide on hanging the victim but after thoughts and initial torturing scenes we changed our mind this was mainly due to the difficulty of finding a different place to hang the boy and not actually do it without it looking bad which would have looked unrealistic and unprofessional, so we decided to drown the boy instead, which turned out very well and I am glad we decided to do it.

 

6. Although time management may seem a less exciting aspect of the creative media practice, it is possibly the most important – how did you manage your time, and with what success?

 At the beginning of the whole process of making this piece we sat down and looked at what we had struggled with when making a film last year and we both immediately looked at each other saying ‘TIME’. So we put a great deal of thought into timings of the piece. I found that the filming took longer than I would have liked in this previously made film and he found that the editing took longer than he had anticipated. So we decided to split the time equally, half filming and half editing. As it turns out we took far longer to film the scenes than we had planned for which is ironic as in the end we found that we had to cut lots of good material as the piece was too long. But the editing had to be more rushed than we would have liked but it worked out well in the end. I think we should have allowed slightly longer for the filming but we also need to spend less time planning as we spent a lot of time on planning we which had not even allowed time for, which is perhaps the main reason why we had less time editing than we would have liked.