BFI Film Academy Diary, Week Five

What did you do?

Today was our shoot day, and we filmed our short film that we have been writing and planning over the past couple of weeks. Our film is about a woman who is struggling to manage her job, due to her alcohol addiction.

At the begging of the day the cinematographers were shown the camera equipment that they would be using for the day and were reminded how to operate them. As I was the director I sat with our two actors, explaining each scene and more about their characters. We then all met back up as a production team and were ready to start filming.

Helping us today was Daren Eagles, who had already given us two master classes on previous weeks about cinematography and editing. Daren suggested that it would be good for our actors if we started off filming some simple scenes first, to get them used to being on camera.

After our actors became more comfortable on camera, we started filming more complicated scenes involving dialogue. One scene that was challenging was one where our main character Jackie arrives at work drunk and gets in trouble with her boss. This scene was challenging as it was quite long and we were having some problems with outside sound intervening with our shots.

The final scene to film involved the character walking outside to the shops and buying alcohol. This was another challenging scene to film, due to us being out in the public, we had to be mindful of bystanders, entering our shot. We also had the problem of not being able to control sound and lighting. However, I we were still able to still film the shots that we needed.

What have you learned?

This week, I learnt the importance of time management when filming and the need of sticking to deadlines.  This is something I think as a team, struggled with slightly due to indecisiveness. This led to the final 30 minutes of the day being rushed, and we did not have as much time as we would have liked. However, I have since learnt the importance of sticking to a set schedule and how planning out your shoot beforehand can be helpful.

How have you worked with others?

This my role was the director, so my job involved working closely with the actors helping them with their performance, and leading the rest of my team. I believe that I did this well and worked well with everyone in my team. Although I was the director, I was still open to other people’s opinions, which I believe is important as it shows team work.

What do you need to develop?As I mentioned earlier, one of the problems that my team faced when filming was poor time management. I think that this was due to us not being as organised as we could have been. I think that organisation is a very important skill that I need to improve. To do this, I think planning beforehand will be useful.