Project 2 Write Up

Project two was a growth experience both through the experimental film collaboration as well as the hands on building of the camera Dolly. While project 1 was human behavior, everything ended up being related to time management and its organization techniques for most group members. Here, in simply working on projects with other people, that other people depended on, those time management techniques were all required of me automatically.

My experience with the shoot made me realize If its an important shoot with a lot of people required to pull it off, you need to start planning it three weeks ahead of time. This way everyone can agree on a schedule and if anything comes up there's time to reschedule, as well as it seems to be a good length of time before a scheduled event occurs that makes people more responsible to show. I had written three short pieces to be shot as a way to avoid the problem of having an actor missing and having to come up with a solution for that on the spot. One was for 5 people, one was for 4, and one was for 3. Two actors showed up. So, unfortunately, while I had wanted a crisp feel of each shot moving but smoothly and rythmically with the comic scenario, I instead had to go handheld and without a proper microphone due to the time constraint.
We spent half our shoot time thinking up an idea and half our shoot time shooting. The cool thing about having to work under that pressure was that my actors and I came up with some incredible ideas we've agreed to shoot at a later date which were inappropriately long for what this needed.
I had the three of us agree on a humor style, and while it did not end up our first choice we knew we could pull off a Pete and Brian type "knock knock" youtube sketch in 2 hours and so we did.
I had a lot of fun working with everyone and really collaborating on something again. It was interesting to see what connections and ideas spawned out of the "5 Links."
My one other lesson learned the hard way was that upon turning our film dvd into the openlens film festival I was told it was too long for them to accept because it was 18 minutes and the longest they accepted was 15 minutes.
Attention to detail and preparation is something I thought I was much better at then I have proven to be lately. This project was a good reminder to stay buttoned up in terms of deadlines and guidelines even simply out of respect for others. Had we checked we could have cut it down and had a screening. (Ironically this post is way late).
I'll be shooting my first short with the dolly over the break. I'll be sure to post it as a demonstration.