On Friday and Saturday I decided to help out on the ‘Merlot with Mates’ film shoot. As I was interested with the film from the beginning, I really wanted to see how it would turn out. I was really glad that I had decided to help out, because as usually occurs, you have less time and less people than you need on the day.
I was really impressed with the way everyone worked together on set. If someone needed something, the next instant someone else would have it for them. The whole core group had organised all of their shots and set-ups prior to the shoot so that on the day it almost felt like they were speaking another language.
The film, while being simple in design was surprisingly complex to execute. We used an expanding pole and two c-stands to hang two LED light panels from. This was our sole lighting source for the whole shoot, but it was highly designed and created the right mood and feel immediately. Again, I was glad that I was there, because I was able to help Jenny, the cinematographer, set up the lighting while the production team conversed about the shoot and what needed to be accomplished.
Through working on this shoot I’ve really learnt the value of specific roles, in particular the use of segmenting knowledge to different departments, only communicating what is necessary to get the job done effectively, otherwise you are left with an inefficient ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ situation. While we narrowly avoided that situation on this weekend’s shoot and still managed to be efficient, it is interesting to see how the system and the machine that drives traditional ‘Hollywood’ filmmaking work, and work surprisingly well at that.