REFLECTIONS ON A PROJECT CALLED: BLUE
It’s been an incredibly busy past three (or four? Yikes!) weeks. I’ve definitely let my ‘fear’ of not wanting to be a shit filmmaker stop me from getting out and capturing footage for my documentary BLUE, and playing in the editing suite. This really comes from a tendency to intellectualise everything I do, then follow through exactly. What I’m learning is that filmmaking can’t possibly be an intellectual exercise, not purely anyway. This is surely a given, but I had to learn it. Filmmaking is also obviously a very creative exercise, and the style of essay film I’m making very creative by virtue of it’s exploratory premise. So, there were some issues early on about my ability to really do justice to the strong ideas I had formulated in my Treatment, which was extensive.
However, I am savouring and absolutely enjoying the process of making BLUE. I’m learning so much, SO MUCH. Making a film on your own means the buck starts and ends with you – all my decisions create this film, the responsibility is all mine. This initially worried me (see earlier blog posts about ‘not being revolutionary’), but I’ve found since completing the Treatment and recently after collecting a shit load of footage to play with, that it’s such an evolving process. While it’s been important for me to revisit my Treatment, the project has equally evolved after contact with each participant.
The film itself is getting there. My three desired participants have been interviewed! Donna’s interview is locked off, Gerry my wonderful artist’s interview is locked off (she blogged about me!), and the interview with my laid back surfer Peter is cut but I’m not 100% decided on it at the moment. My opening sequence is cut, and I’m recording the voiceover with my soulful and very excited actress Katharine tomorrow. This is going to be a really important step, the voiceover. Robin mentioned that you don’t want it to appear like the voiceover has been shot to the film, or the film edited to the voiceover, but some synthesis in between. However, in the editing suite its become clear that I can’t really know timing of cuts until I have a backdrop to it (maybe this is the wrong approach, but it’s making sense to me?). I ended up recording the whole voiceover myself just to get a sense and have something to edit to; the script was drafted, edited and completed weeks ago. The sequences I’ve been messing around with and the script may both need to be altered to what my actresses brings.
It’s allowed me to move forward though to the more ‘self conscious’ part of my film, the three unique expressive sequences which follow each interview. These sequences are a collection of footage I’ve shot, mixed with archival footage that will explore an idea raised by the participant and visually tell the story of the woman in voiceover, as well as ruminate on the colour blue. This will definitely be the more time consuming ‘editing’ part, where the interviews were relatively straight forward. These sequences require a SHIT LOAD of footage to draw from, requiring a SHIT LOAD of shoots and therefore equipment borrowing, which can sometimes be inconvenient. A shout out to the Techs who are incredibly helpful and willing to share their knowledge despite stupid university heads who would rather undermine their generosity.
Anyway, in Film-TV2 we’re having rough cut screenings in class this week and I’ll only have completed about 70% of my film, so it could interesting. I have to finish off Peter’s expressive sequence which is very roughly half done, begin Gerry’s, begin Donna’s and shoot the Outro shot (a lingering take of a single object).
The next step will be to address sound. Including finding the perfect piece of music for my credits and Outro. There will not be any other piece of music, so I need to consider what sounds I want to layer in post within expressive sequences.
Caught up.