I am going to reflect on my work as first AD, which took place in the last six weeks or so. I also was a sound recorder at one point in my Serial life, but I have already reflected on that, and I put about 17 times the amount of work into being first AD. I am SO proud of the work I did as first AD. I didn’t spend an exorbitant amount of time working but it was really tricky for me to get my head around my responsibilities at the beginning. That may seem silly, but it was genuinely overwhelming trying to organize everything and everyone, especially throughout the breakdown.
During this time particular, I spent a lot of time stressing about what was going to happen and how we were going to fix the problem. I wasn’t even involved in any of the talks (about stopping the project) with the writers but it still made me very nervous. As I’ve said before, once the decision was made to return to Human Resources, it was just about getting on with the show for me. And that’s what I did. I spent a lot of time working out our schedule, making sure everyone was prepared for our shoots and corresponding with different people. I really believe I played a big part in how smooth and efficient our shoots were. It’s not something that’s visible in our final episodes, apart from the fact that we even got it done maybe. But the success of the shoot was definitely tangible on the day and I thank myself for that. I think I did a good job of organising (of course, along with Bridie).
I was successful in my planning of the schedule in terms of timing and how long each scene would take, and how long we needed for breaks and location changes, etc. Something I learnt the importance of or would do more in the future is rehearsals. We learnt after our first shoot that these were important but I still think I could have allocated more time to them in the later shoots. I’m not making excuses, but I was worried about getting it all done and that’s why there wasn’t a tonne of time left for them. It mostly didn’t cause any problems, but there were a few scenes that could’ve been improved with a bit more practice.
Something else I definitely learnt was the absolute importance of having reliable crew/actors and making sure you have confirmed their availabilities!!!!!!! I think that in the future, I will make more to-do lists and checklists that have to be completed before moving on to the next stage of planning. I.e, check the main actor is available and willing to shoot before writing call sheet and confirming shoot. I also learnt the value of communication. Even within our own group, there were many times that more communication would have helped everyone out a lot. Especially myself, as there were a handful of decisions I was reluctant to make by myself. At the end of the day, I needed to make them for us to get anything done.
I also learnt of the value of a runner! It would’ve been splendid to have someone else go and fetch baby powder from Melbourne Central 15 mins before we were due to start shooting, but alas, I was destined for the journey of the baby powder. I also learnt that it feels silly to continually say “Quiet on set” when no one is making any sound.
I did enjoy being assistant director, but I am actually looking forward to sinking my teeth back into some technical or more ‘creative’ work in the next opportunity I get (even if creativity is overrated).