#7 – 5/4/2016

Today’s class was centered around a group exercise where the classroom became a film set. Every member of the class had a specific role in helping to assemble a scene, as a way to experience in real time how a film crew works together to overcome obstacles and tribulations to create a coherent and viable piece of cinema.

Meg and I were chosen as the actors of the scene. The greatest revelation that I experienced by doing this was how tedious the job is and also how “watched” you are. I felt super self-conscious being studied and judged by the whole class. It was a rewarding experience though and allowed our humour to shine through. I flubbed my lines a couple of times and we both laughed a lot which set the whole crew back quite a bit, which in turn added a sense of realism to the experience I thought. A real film takes months to complete, so one can only imagine how many of those hours are unused footage of mistakes and bloopers. I think we’re hilarious.

The rest of the class had roles such as camera operator, sound engineer, director etc… The thing that I find the most interesting about this was, even though we were all working as a team… It still took quite a lot of time, effort and energy to get a simple scene filmed. I strongly believe that the bigger the team, the longer it takes, as different individuals have different opinions on how things should be curated and presented. Smaller teams usually work more efficient for the reason that there are less voices to be heard. I guess the thing that I took most from this class was the importance of the Director in maintaining a sense of balance and order within a film crew. The director is there to make sure that the film gets made, in the most creatively concise way.