This semester I collaborated with Ali and Mitch on their films, operating the camera for some of Ali’s shots as well as being a second opinion on some lighting decisions and with Mitch being a set of extra hands on set, on top of brain storming/workshopping ideas with him and acting in some of his shorter segments.

With my own film I collaborated  once more with Mitch and with my two actors.

I felt leading my own shoot and giving the actors and Mitch (on sound) advice and feedback to be the most challenging aspect of collaboration this semester. When I was just helping out Ali and Mitch either on camera or acting I felt quite comfortable with accepting their instructions. I found the shoot with Ali particularly good for my learning because he was giving me instructions on various shots which I had to follow, it was my job, but I also had to frame the shot and make sure that it could practically work out, and if it didn’t, it was my job too make it. A particular shot that comes to mind was the final one of the day, where I had to film Ali walking towards Mitch who was lying in bed-it was hard to frame this shot from the particular angle Ali wanted to film it on, just purely because of lack of space. Though we ended up pushing the bed out giving me more room, I found it hard to articulate to the director that the exact framing of this shot can’t quite work out how we initially planned it to. Though of course Ali was fine with it, it was breaking the news that was the hard thing-irregardless of the director. As a person I believe I’m quite amicable and generally like to please people so when things don’t work out as planned I struggle to tell others, I struggle to ‘break the news’. So I think this situation was a learning curve due to my realisation that I can’t let my own inhibitions, my own inability to say no or maybe not get in the way of being able to film, and ultimately communicate a really good idea. Its better that I bite the bullet and say ‘No’ or ‘Lets try this another way’ than let mistakes be in the final product.

I was a bit more comfortable directing the actors, because at the end of the day it was my project and I needed to be driven in order to get it made. Though normally I stress over assessments I found when shooting, that I was so engrossed in what I was doing with the camera and in the performance of the actors that the anxiety of it being an assessment task really subsided and it was just me and the idea. I found it much easier to communicate with others and reach a desired goal when it is just the cast and crew and the idea-with nothing inbetween. Demonstrating this was  Ali’s shoot. Though we (Mitch, Ali and Myself) are friends, when shooting the film we were totally engaged in the idea and our discussion continually centred itself around getting the most out of our time (to shoot) and getting the best out of each shot. Though this boils down to a simple matter of focus, the importance of focus and dedication to the idea cannot be more important it is absolutely essential, and it cant be just a few-it has to be absolutely everyone.

– One thing I did struggle with when working with the actors was initially getting them to apply themselves, at the beginning I was a little bit too easy going and the they both talked and chattered, probably because I was unassertive but as I gave them more material and they released the job they had on their hands, without me saying anything, they naturally picked up their game and became very focused.

– I think a big part of collaboration is making sure everyone in the cast and crew is happy and comfortable. I did this by buying food (mostly chocolate and chips) and continually offering drinks, unfortunately for me everyone was fine and no one ate the food, fortunately for me however this was because everyone was quite driven and happy to be given advice and ideas on how to improve the material.

– I should also add my actors Katie and Jordan were amazing, super dedicated, fun and focused. They were great!

– I don’t think I could write a blog post on collaboration without saying how much I enjoyed creating things with Mitch. He was dedicated, easy going and continually supported and improved each idea that we worked on in the various projects. Demonstrating this was in one of his shoots where I had a fragment of an idea (reversing what we did in a previous shoot we had someone off camera talk about the person on camera, instead of the person on camera talking about themselves) and he picked it up and ran with it-and wrote really interesting scripts for both characters as well as getting the shot prepared and fixing any practical issues that we had. This is an example of collaboration at its most exciting-when its at an ideas level, and with Mitch it happened quite often. I should also add that if I gave Mitch a nickel for every time he helped me fix an issue he would be a rich man!