Reflecting on our film shoot last Friday, I found that experiencing certain roles is much more eye opening than any theoretical understanding of that role could be.
When planning we decided that this scene needs to have a backstory. A scene is not a film on it’s own, rather a part of a narrative, a larger whole. Creating a story helped us establish and better understand the type of characters we wanted to express. Synonymously, it aided us in creating a scene with actual substance.
During the first film shoot I undertook the role of ‘Director of Photography’. I had initially assumed the director of photography would have more involvement on the shooting day but this film shoot proved otherwise. I did have a large involvement in the planning process where Karl and I primarily organized the shot design. During the shoot I was less directorial in terms of the fact that Karl was the director thus had the final say as to the alterations of any of the shoots. This was a very interesting experience for me because it opened my eyes to the crucial role of the DOP in the pre-shoot plans.
For the second shoot directed by Seonaid, I acted in the role of ‘Lucy’ (The girl being followed by Charlie). Although acting doesn’t appear to be directly correlated with the film crew work it actually offers a much greater understanding of the process holistically and it also teaches you how to work more compatibly and efficiently with actors. Once it that position, you understand how to guide your actors to achieve the framing you want.
Epiphany:
1.You can never understand being in film crew roles from a solely theoretical basis.
- Even If you never want to act, always be open to the position of acting because it will assist in a holistic understanding of the entire process.