Billy's No Mate Of Mine- Final product
Question
One:
What are the
stages in making a film?
Pre-Production-
Script writing,
storyboarding, location scouting/recci, props list, equipment list, schedule,
production contract.
Production- Filming, sound recording.
Post
production-
Editing, cutting, mixing.
The first stages
of making a film is generally everything that goes into pre-production. This
film class has given me the opportunity in my gap year, to get involved in
media, something I have been looking to do since I finished school. In general
I have not made a film to completion, I have made a film trailer, and have been
involved in the pre-production of another short film but I haven't had the
opportunity to experience the full process from start to finish.
Above: Final storyboard of shots put together.
Whilst taking
part in these film classes, I have had to work in a group with 4 other people,
mostly younger than me. I tried to draw upon my experiences at a-level when I
studied media, and all the academia that I had previously learnt. One of the
key skills and tasks I enjoyed most at a-level was pre-production. I would make
folders packed full of ideas and research for the brief that I was given, and
having the freedom to explore and invent ideas myself felt very worthwhile.
However, working in a group has once again helped me to understand that
everybody has an idea, from the smallest viewpoint, to a plot changing twist,
ideas can be scraped, changed, twisted, stretched and rebooted in order for a
story to really take shape. Everybody has to be keen and invested in the
project, you can’t make a film with no passion and inspiration, even if it’s
the tiniest amount of interest and input you can still help out in a different
area.
Brainstorming. Is
literally a storm, a flourish of ideas that go around and around in your head
until you get the right one, and once you get the right one, you’ll know it.
Once I come up with an idea, I make a little side note on my mobile, or on a
document on my laptop, just a few key words that will jog my memory if I ever
need it again. It’s a lovely feeling when you finally get an idea for making a
film, and for my first idea I came up with the start and ending to my concept.
After a trip to the cinema, our group sat down to discuss early day’s story
concepts and I mentioned I had written part of a screenplay. Our leader,
Nicola, gave me a reminding insight that you should view a story in three
stages, act 1, 2 and three. This reminded me of Todorov’s theory of story
structuring, the narrative should following in stages including, equilibrium,
disequilibrium and new equilibrium, so I went back home after the class and
wrote the middle section, disequilibrium and completed my screenplay in half an
hour. Over the rest of the class I continuously gave my contributions to the
group, who then analysed and adapted my idea. My friend Yasmine, came up with
an idea by herself, even though it was awkward trying to decide I cringe saying
it, whose was better, we decided that in fact no, this can be adapted to
intertwine both our ideas. I felt relived, I find it uncomfortable having other
people judge my work, but it lifted myself confident a bit to know that both
our ideas had been chosen to work. So after various rewritings of the
screenplay, and backwards and forwards on Facebook presenting final ideas, we
showed our idea to the group.
Adapting. This
process can be frustrating, when you think you have your final idea, you then
realise you haven’t. This happened many times, but that is part of the process,
you have to respectfully accommodate people, I really didn’t want to feel I/we
were taking over the film, other members wanted something more light and
comical compared to our slightly ‘dark’ take on mental illness. It was
something me and Yasmine wanted to explore, and we will continue to pursue on
day, the representation of mental illness in the media. I realise that I too
wanted to create something lighter for this club and that this would make the
filming process easier and funnier. The next step was storyboarding, and again
changes were made, camera shots and angles were noted, props were noted and
locations were noted. Having a clear visualisation beforehand should make
things easier moving into production.
Next, filming.
Setting up camera equipment was a challenge, I had never been familiarised as
well as I could have been with tripods, camera’s and sound. But this was a
process and I was learning. We alternated roles, so I was the director first.
This was very difficult for me. I am naturally a quiet and reserved person, I
lack confidence, which is a thing I’m working on. Working with the younger
people in the group I supposed has lightened me up as I didn’t feel as judged,
I could try to tell them what to do without them getting annoyed as well as
work on my patience issues. I haven’t quite figured out if I prefer working
behind the scenes of a film crew or actually being a part of the film crew. I
do thank the class however for giving me the opportunity to at least test out
my feelings of being around the environment of making a film.
